Bank officials are ascertaining the exact amount of cash taken by the gunmen, a police official said. pti file photo
At least three masked militants on Monday looted over Rs five lakh from a bank branch in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
Police said Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants barged into J&K Bank branch Arwani in Bijbehara, the home town of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, in the afternoon and looted Rs 5.20 lakh.
“During initial investigation and with the help of CCTV footage, it was found that Hizbul militants are involved in this crime. Efforts are on to nab the culprits,” a police spokesperson said and added they have registered a case and investigation was set into motion.
Sources said the militants were dressed in burkhas (veil), took them off once inside the bank, brandished their weapons and fled with the money.
Earlier, this month in a rare incident of its kind, Jammu and Kashmir police had arrested a resident of Utter Pradesh, who was allegedly part of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) module in the Valley involved in attacks on security forces and bank robberies cases.
Kashmir witnessed a surge in bank looting cases ever since demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 last year. There have been a dozen bank robberies in Kashmir, especially in southern districts since last November.
However, today’s incident was the first bank robbery in last almost three months. On May 3, militants had looted two banks in southern Pulwama district in one day forcing, banks in Kashmir to stop cash transactions at 40 branches in vulnerable areas of Pulwama and Shopian districts.