PATNA: Unidentified armed criminals looted around Rs 20 lakh from a State Bank of India’s (SBI) branch in
Chandrahathi village under Kurhani police station area in
Muzaffarpur district on Tuesday.
Police sources said that while decamping with the looted money, the criminals also took away the digital hard drive recorder of the CCTV cameras installed inside the bank, leaving no clue for prompt investigation.
Kurhani police station SHO
Shashi Bhushan Kumar said that at last six to seven armed criminals entered inside the bank premises at around 1.10pm and looted arund Rs 20 lakh.
“At least seven persons including four bank employees were inside the branch the dacoity took place,” he said adding the criminals had reached on three different bikes.
He said after entering inside the premises, the criminals took banks employees hostage on gunpoint and forced one of them to open the strong room where the cash money was kept.
“Around Rs 18 lakh was delivered to the bank on Monday for daily transactions. It is yet not known if the criminals were keeping an eye on the remittance of money or had randomly targeted it,” he said.
“None of the criminals had covered their face and all were between 20-25 years age group,” he said adding police were trying to get details of their physical appearance from those who were inside the bank at the time of loot.
He said the criminals were inside the bank for around 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, DSP (west) Krishna Murari Prasad, while talking to TOI over phone, said that all neighbouring district police were alerted after the loot.
“Especially Vaishali district police were alerted as the retreating path is towards Vaishali which further leads to Patna,” he said.
The DSP said the branch was located hardly 200 meters away from NH-77 and no other CCTV cameras were installed in the locality as it a village area.
Muzaffarpur SSP Harpreet Kaur said police have sealed district boundaries and police were trying to ascertain the identity of the criminals.
(Representative image)