A four-member gang of thieves used gas cutters to burgle a rural bank on Bengaluru's northern outskirts and steal Rs 3.18 crore worth of gold plus Rs 15 lakh in cash.
The thieves took just two hours to break open the bank's sliding door, rolling shutter and strongroom and decamp with the valuables, in what police feel was a well-planned operation.
The heist took place at Karnataka Grameena Bank in Hosahalli, near Doddaballapur, in the early hours of Saturday.
The bank closed for the day at 5.30 pm on Friday and its five-member staff were to return only on Monday. But a rude shock awaited them on Saturday.
At 9.45 am, neighbours called up the branch manager, Tanu Chaubey, and informed him that the main door had been broken, following which Chaubey asked his assistant manager Shivaprakash to visit the bank.
When Shivaprakash reached there, he was stunned: the front windows had been smashed, and the main door and the rolling shutter burst open.
More bad news awaited inside. The strongroom had been smashed open and the gold safes emptied out. That was not all.
Four of the five CCTV cameras installed inside the bank were missing and the fifth one was twisted and damaged. The anti-theft alarm wire had been cut off.
In all, 349 out of the 352 packets containing gold worth Rs 3.18 crore had been stolen; Rs 14.86 lakh in cash was gone too.
"A professional gang is behind this," Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Mallikarjun Baldandi told DH. "We have formed a special team to crack the case. We are checking vehicles and mobile phones that operated in the area around that time. We are also rounding up habitual offenders."
Baldandi said the thieves wore hand gloves and balaclavas. He did not rule out an inside job, though the bank manager said he didn't believe that any of his colleagues could be involved.
The gang appears to have done its homework. It chose to strike on Friday night before two days of a bank holiday. It apparently knew beforehand where the alarm was located and how to disable it without being detected.
A senior police officer who's part of the investigation said the thieves not only took away four of the five CCTV cameras but also the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). As a result, police do not have CCTV footage of the actual burglary inside the bank.
According to him, poor security at the bank made the thieves' job easier. "It's an old building and the bank has been operating there since 2007," the officer said. "There was no security guard."
According to Choubey, thieves first tried to enter the bank by breaking the windows. When that didn't work, they used the gas cutters to gain entry, he added.
Police have opened a case under IPC sections related to break-ins and theft in the dwelling.
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