Miscreants open fire at police after being caught breaking ATM
| Date :03-Jul-2019 |
Staff Reporter:
A Dial 100 police team on night vigil foiled an attempt to break an ATM kiosk of the State Bank of India (SBI) in Parwalia area in the city on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. Although the burglars carrying pistol also fired in the air to warn their accomplices that a police team was around, the cops could not retaliate because they failed to locate the criminals due to darkness and cloudy sky. None of the accused was held and now the sleuths are busy gathering CCTF footage of the area to establish identities of all the miscreants. According to SHO of Parwalia Ranjeet Mishra, the ATM kiosk of (SBI) had over Rs 13 lakh cash inside it at the time of incident.
The bank officials concerned did not have any idea of the incident and we had to inform them about it who reached the spot on Tuesday morning and found the cash intact. Notably, despite the instructions from top police officials including IG Yogesh Deshmukh and DIG Irshad Wali given in a meeting held on June 11 with bank officials that all the banks should have all the safety features installed and must deploy security guard at their ATM booths.
It was around 3:45 am on Tuesday that the miscreants had downed the shutter of the ATM kiosk and had almost cut the cash box of the machine using gas cutter to relieve it of money. Three policemen of Parwalia police station including ASI Hemant Singh, constable Balram and Dial 100 driver Jitendra, who were returning from Mubarakpur and on night patrolling when passing through the area, they spotted suspicious activity in the ATM. The cops smell a rat when they saw the shutter of the ATM half-down, and as they neared the kiosk they heard a gunshot that diverted their attention. After that, the police began to look towards the direction from where the gunshot was fired, but because of the darkness, nothing was visible, and the thieves made off but without any cash.
As the cops went to the ATM after they found none around, they found the shutter lifted and the cash-box hacked with a gas-cutter. The news spread panic in the police department and all the top police officials gathered there in morning. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Dinesh Kaushal, SDOP Bairagarh Deepak Nayak, SHO Parwalia R K Mishra, SHO Koh-e-Fiza Amrish Bohare and other officials cordoned off the area in morning and FSL investigation was carried out on Tuesday and efforts are on to trace the accused.