The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Mystery deepens in bank heist case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 22, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Mystery deepens in bank heist case

With the evidence leading them nowhere, sleuths are keeping their fingers crossed in the Rs 35-lakh theft at the Banjara hills branch of the State Bank of Mysore committed a year ago, writes Marri Ramu

It is more than a year since the Rs. 35-lakh heist at the State Bank of Mysore's Banjara hills branch was committed.

The peculiarity about this sensational theft is that detectives thought it was an `open and shut' case going by the circumstantial evidence. But the offenders had remained elusive with whatever material evidence available not leading the sleuths anywhere.

So confident were the police higher-ups that they went on record stating that adequate evidence about possible connivance of bank employees was gathered.

However, the case reached a dead end even after police grilled some 60 persons having access to the bank.

What baffled everyone is the lack of signs showing forcible entry into the building. In that case, how did the thieves enter inside? It was one question none could answer.

It is believed that the thieves came out around midnight after hiding somewhere in the bank. In the case of the recent heist at Alukkas jewellery shop, the suspects admitted to the police that they went up the building during daytime and came down in the dead of night.

Sleuths suspect that the offenders managed to sneak into the bank in a similar fashion. Investigators say the apparent security lapses on the part of bank management hampered their efforts to zero in on suspects.

Just anyone could walk into the bank building and its basement located on the ever-bustling main road.

Collusion theory

The police were shocked to learn that one bank attender was living in the basement where the strong room was located.

There were many points that indicated possible collusion of persons familiar with the building's topography.

The defused burglar alarm led the police to believe that offenders knew where it was fixed. But the reply from bank staff that they had forgotten to remove the key from the alarm keyhole only deepened the mystery.

The keys of the strong room were kept in an iron safe and that of the safe in an almirah. The thieves broke open the almirah, collected keys of the iron safe and from it took the keys of the strong room. How can they be so sure of the place where the keys were hidden?

Even more astonishing was the fact that thieves knew details of the number combination lock the strong room had.

The bank authorities could not explain why the door leading to the strong room was only bolted and not locked.

Hopes of the detectives to bust the crime dried up as the fingerprints at the crime scene too did not match with any of the known offenders.

ith all options exhausted, the sleuths are keeping their fingers crossed expecting that some clue from an unexpected angle in the future would help them solve the case.

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