New Delhi   

Jewellery worth lakhs stolen from bank locker

Staff Reporter

Bank employees questioned; insider's job, say police

NEW DELHI: Ornaments worth several lakhs of rupees were found missing from a bank locker at the Rajouri Garden branch of Canara Bank in West Delhi on Saturday. The police suspect involvement of an insider.

According to the police, 66-year-old Amarjeet Kaur, a resident of E-Block in Rajouri Garden, visited the bank in the afternoon to take out her belongings that had been kept in one of the lockers.

However, she was shocked to see that the locker had been cleaned up. She informed the bank authorities and subsequently the police were called around 1 p.m.

Ms. Kaur, who belongs to a business family, had kept the gold jewellery -- more than a dozen gold bangles and half-a-dozen gold jewellery sets -- in the locker in 2004.

While she has not furnished the exact value of the ornaments kept in the locker yet, it is said that they were worth several lakhs of rupees. The family had rented the locker about 20 years ago.

Preliminary investigations have not revealed any evidence of the locker having been forcibly opened.

One of the two keys that remained in the possession of the bank has also been found intact.

The police, therefore, suspect that an insider might be involved in theft.

Some laxity

The police suspect that there was some laxity on the part of the bank authorities that led to such an incident. They are questioning the bank employees.

In the past, too, cash and valuables have gone missing from banks in the Capital. While 16 lockers were broken into at the Naoroji Nagar Branch of Punjab National Bank in which cash and jewellery worth Rs. 80 lakhs were found missing during 2004, at least five lockers were found opened at the Malviya Nagar Branch of another nationalised bank in 2005.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

A week of many a failed promise and some rather understated delights ... .
Become role models, teachers told
MCD made tall claims but failed to take action
Delhi traders facing huge loss of business
Dengue panic may hit tourism
Girl rescued, relative held
Jewellery worth lakhs stolen from bank locker
A voice for the voiceless
Don't open gates for foreign lawyers, urges DBA
One held for cheating
Festival of dance
MCD official arrested for taking bribe
Another award for Metro chief
Shobha Yatra
Cops attacked
Around the City
Briefly
In the Capital Today

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu