Bank heists in State rise 147% in 3 years

Indicating a perilous trend of sort, Odisha of late has been recording increasing trend of bank robberies or ATM thefts.

The enormity of the trend is evident from the fact that when the State for the whole year of 2015-16 witnessed 19 bank robberies/dacoities or ATM thefts, in just three-months of April- June, Odisha has already recorded a total of 16 bank robberies/dacoities and ATM thefts.

According to data available with RBI’s banking supervision division here, in the first three-months of 2018-19, Odisha has recorded 16 bank robberies and ATM thefts where the cash decamped totalled to around Rs 2crore vis-a-vis mere Rs 1.5 crore in 19 such cases in the full financial year of 2015-16.

When the amount involved reflects the growing severity of crime against banks in Odisha, the more significant data tumbles out further is in year 2016-17 the State had recorded a whopping 61 such incidents where cash decamped totalled to a whopping around Rs 6 crore. But in the year 2017-18, bank robberies/dacoities and ATM thefts had declined to 47 and the amount involved also declined to around Rs 50 lakh. But overall, bank robberies and ATM thefts in the State during 2015-16 – 2017-18 shot up by 147 per cent in Odisha. The statistics does not augur well especially so when the State with much fanfare is going to organise the mega investment conclave ‘Make in Odisha’ version 2.0 in coming November.

Though the crackdowns and investigations on many such bank robberies or ATM thefts by police revealed of operation of an inter-State criminal network where criminals involved are from Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, a significant fact is RBI sources revealed that Bihar and West Bengal have emerged as country’s number 1 and 2 in bank crimes, respectively.

Given the context, an analysis of 10 years’ NCRB data shows that whenever bank crimes in Bihar, West Bengal posted a jump, bank crimes did show a spurt in Odisha too. But home-grown bank criminals’ sinister design couldn’t be ruled out, when last year two Odia youths in Chennai were apprehended red-handed while fleeing post a failed loot attempt at an ATM. More so, in their own admission before the Chennai police, they revealed of learning the tricks of bank robbery via internet.

While prevention of bank crimes lie squarely both on the banking system and the State police, the RBI officials feel lack of effective liaisoning between the two stakeholders in carrying out security audit of a place before putting up ATM kiosks.

As per the RBI data, which have details of bank branches/ATMs robbed, banks/ATMs here that have structures or entry points with easy access are mainly the target of robbers.

In view of the above revelations, experts are of the view that State police need to undertake a vulnerability mapping of banks/ATMs across the State soon to beef up beat patrolling of vulnerable branches/ATMs, and also hold a joint meeting of concerned banks to undergo improvements in their security designs.