SBP ATM broken open, Rs 3 lakh gone
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, July 14
Unidentified miscreants broke open the ATM of the State Bank of Patiala (SBP) branch with a gas-cutter at Ibban village in Kapurthala district in the wee hours of Tuesday and decamped with over Rs 3 lakh.
The incident has once again brought to light the poor security arrangements of the Punjab Police, as several such incidents reported in the past are still lying unsolved by the police.
Robbers reportedly committed the crime in the wee hours of Tuesday. They first broke open the shutter of the ATM and later managed to break open the ATM with a gas-cutter. They decamped with Rs 3.2 lakh from the ATM.
Manager Ramesh Khattar said he was informed by some passerby at 5 am that locks of the ATM shutter were lying broken. He, along with other bank staff, immediately reached the spot and found that around Rs 3 lakh had been stolen from the ATM.
Senior police officials of Kapurthala reached the spot and started investigation. The police had been studying the CCTV footage to get clues about the robbers.
Robbers had struck aT unguarded Punjab National Bank’s ATM at Kang Sabhu village near Lambra on the Jalandhar-Nakodar Road on July 7. They used gas-cutters to cut the shutter and the ATM machine using the same equipment. They had decamped with the ATM chest having around Rs 2 lakh. The police are yet to get any vital leads in the case so far.
Superintendent of Police (Investigation), Kapurthala, Jagjit Singh Saroya, didn’t respond to repeated phone calls.
