Karnataka - Belgaum   

Bank robbers strike in Belgaum, get away with lakhs

Staff Correspondent

Lakhs taken away from SBI branch

ARMED ROBBERY: The SBI branch in Belgaum that was raided by a gang of robbers on Friday.

Belgaum: Armed robbers got away with lakhs of rupees (the exact amount is yet to be determined) from the Rani Chennamma Nagar branch of State Bank of India here on Friday.

Branch manager S.S. Naik said seven or eight youngsters aged between 25 to 30 years, who spoke in Kannada mixed with Hindi and Marathi, entered the small branch of the bank around 10.30 a.m. waving pistols and forced him, the cashier and the accountant to open the strongroom.

The gang took all the cash from the strongroom — Rs. 7 lakh to Rs. 8 lakh, but not more than Rs. 10 lakh, Mr. Naik said. Afterwards, the robbers pushed all the bank staff and the few customers who were present into the safe-deposit locker room, locked it from outside and escaped.

Mr. Naik said though the bank was equipped with an alarm, none of the staff were able to set it off since they were being held at gunpoint. The branch did not have any security guards.

The staff and customers were locked up until someone came are opened the locker room.

On being informed, Superintendent of Police Hemant Nimbalkar and Additional Superintendent of Police S.K. Hegde rushed to the spot with a dog squad, but found no clue.

Mr. Naik said the robbers did not touch the bank's safe-deposit lockers. Two customers were roughed up by the robbers.

The Udyambag police have registered a case.

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