The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Banks told to carry security audit of lockers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Banks told to carry security audit of lockers

Surveillance facility is available only in a few banks in Chennai, says Petlee Peter

Chennai police have advised all banks in the city to carry out a security audit of their locker systems. The move comes in the wake of two cases of valuables reported missing from lockers of two branches of a nationalised bank in the last seven months.

Following a meeting recently with a few senior bank officials, Commissioner of Police T. Rajendran said that all banks have been asked to review their physical security mechanism. “We have recommended the use of CCTV cameras in appropriate points in the bank, including at the entrance,” he said.

Even as police are investigating the authenticity of the complaints, the bank authorities claim that thefts from lockers are impossible. Since the banks are not aware of what the customers keep inside, they are in no way responsible for the contents of the lockers, add bank officials.

In both cases, the victims, who are senior citizens, complained that they lost 84.5 and over 100 sovereigns of jewellery in April and October from their lockers.

A senior security officer in a nationalised bank said that the installation of CCTV cameras inside locker rooms is mandatory in metropolitan cities as part of security steps. The surveillance facility is available only in a few banks in Chennai compared to cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh, he added. The branches, where the thefts were reported, do not have a CCTV camera facility but only a locker access register signed by the customer.

P. Sakthivel, Joint Commissioner of Police, South Zone, who is investigating one of the cases, said: “We are probing all the possibilities.”

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

Tamil Nadu