Robbery detail delay raises eyebrows

SAMBALPUR:  Six days after the daring daylight heist at Muthoot Finance, the gold financing firm’s inability to provide details of ornaments and cash robbed from its branch here has raised eyebrows. Masked miscreants had looted the branch of Muthoot Finance at Main Road in Budharaja area within Ainthapali police limits on December 29. While the delay in assessing the value of robbed items is bound to reflect on the pace of investigation by police, it has also led to allegations of an insider’s role in the crime. The CCTV footage has been of little help as the armed miscreants had covered their faces.  Incidentally, this is not the first instance of robbery at Muthoot Finance. 

As per reports, there have been many such robberies at Muthoot branches in Bengaluru, Madurai, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Patiala, Daman, Gulbarga and Hyderabad including three last year at Jaipur, Asansol and Sambalpur. The worth of valuables looted in the past robberies from Muthoot branches is `57 crore in gold ornaments and `16 crore in cash.

Despite its tryst with robberies in the past, it is surprising that Muthoot never analysed the threat perception and failed to strengthen the security in its Sambalpur branch. What is more baffling is the fact that though robbers left the records untouched and decamped with only the valuables, Muthoot is finding it difficult to access the value of robbed items.

On the other hand, police have sent two special squads outside the State to analyse the modus operandi of all the robberies at Muthoot which are almost similar. The squads are expected to gather information from the accused who have been arrested for their involvement in the robberies at Muthoot in the past. The interrogation of the accused, who are now in jail, may help police identify the group involved in the crime, sources said.

Contacted, Sambalpur DSP Mihir Panda said police are yet to get the list of ornaments and details of cash robbed from the branch. Admitting that the list of robbed items would have helped the cops to expedite the investigation, Panda said two squads have been sent outside the State and efforts are on to identify and nab the robbers.

On December 29, armed robbers casually walked away after robbing gold ornaments and cash from the Muthoot branch along the busy Budharaja-Fatak main road. Though Muthoot Finance claimed that it was cooperating with the police in investigation, the firm’s failure to assess the loss and submit a list of robbed items has aroused suspicion of an insider being involved in the crime.