Nabha bank robbers killed 3, looted over Rs 1 cr in four years

Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Patiala, November 15

A day after their arrest in connection with the Nabha bank robbery in which a security guard was shot dead and 

Rs 50 lakh looted, the two Sangrur-based accused have confessed to their involvement in three more robberies.

They admitted that they had killed three persons and looted over Rs 1 crore in the past four years. “They killed three persons, injured two and looted weapons and around Rs 1 crore in the past few years. Their questioning will reveal what they did between 2014 and 2018, as they seemed inactive criminally during that period,” said SSP Mandeep Singh Sidhu.

They reportedly invested the looted money in oil tankers and buying property. A sum of Rs 24 lakh found in their bank accounts has been seized while the estimated value of the oil tankers owned by them is said to be around Rs 65 lakh. They ran out of luck yesterday and were caught after having shot dead a guard and looted Rs 50 lakh in cash.

The SSP said, “The accused would use a bike in the crime and park it in a rented room at Sangrur. The room would only be used to hide items used in robberies. Even the bag in which they had taken away the cash yesterday was found in that room.”

“They would also make sure that the route they used to reach their hiding place did not have CCTVs,” he said.

Accused Jagdev Singh (35) and Amanjit Singh (37) of Sangrur have confessed that they, along with their third accomplice, had shot dead a bank guard and looted Rs 36 lakh from a State Bank of Patiala van at Nabha in February 2014.

“Three armed men had shot dead guard Randhir Singh and injured cashier Anurag Tiwari, while they were loading an ATM with cash (in 2014).

Attired in police uniform, the turbaned men took the cash and fled on a motorcycle," Sidhu said. Their third accomplice, Jagdev Singh of Gaggarpur village in Sangrur, died in 2015 due to some kidney ailment. The duo also confessed that on July 14, 2018, they fired on a cash van of Axis Bank near Ghabdan Kothi hospital in Sangrur and fled with Rs 5 lakh after injuring a security guard.

On May 14, they shot at an ATM guard of IDBI Bank in Sangrur city, snatched Rs 9 lakh and his gun and fled. Yesterday, they were arrested within five hours of looting Rs 50 lakh from bank officials at Nabha. Bank guard Prem Chand (52), who had received bullet injuries in the incident, later died at a local hospital.