Engineering students held for bank heist

Four second-year Mechanical Engineering students have been apprehended by the police in connection with Monday’s bank robbery, which also resulted in the death of a customer who was shot at by one of the accused.

The City police cracked the case within four hours of the incident and seized a country-made pistol, Rs 10.7 lakh in cash and two mobiles from them. The police said that preliminary interrogation revealed the gun was purchased in Bihar.

The arrested, Divesh Kumar Singh, 22 — who shot Muralidhar — and his classmates Imran Ali, Prem Kumar Sahu and Vikas Kumar Gupta are from Bihar. The police said they are students of the City-based Acharya Institute of Technology. The college, however, denied this.

The police first arrested Singh from a lodge in Majestic around 8:30 pm on Monday, who minutes later confessed to the crime and also provided information about his friends involved. Based on the information, the police arrested the other three in Chikkabanavara and Yeshwantpur early Tuesday.

City Police Commissioner B G Jyothi Prakash Mirji said the arrests were made in the nick of time as they were about to flee to Bihar by train. Mirji said the CCTV footage that had recorded the assailant clearly helped his team arrest Singh. “We also followed all standard operating procedures like nakabandi of exit points, which also helped in cracking the case at breakneck speed,” he added.

On Monday evening, Divesh Kumar Singh had barged into Corporation Bank’s Chikkabanavara Branch on Hessaraghatta Main Road, threatened the bank staff and customers and shot Muralidhar, one of the customers, in the right shoulder.

Muralidhar, a civil contractor, succumbed to his injuries at a nearby private hospital.
The police, quoting the bank, had on Monday claimed that the gang had decamped with Rs 15.23 lakh. But they have been able to recover only Rs 10.7 lakh. Mirji said the police would crosscheck with the bank and investigate into the issue.