Armed and masked, gang of six robs cash, gold worth Rs 1.8cr from bank in Shirur

PUNE: A gang of six men, two of them armed with pistols, barged into Bank of Maharashtra’s (BoM) Pimparkhed branch in Shirur taluka, about 80km from here, around 1pm on Thursday. The gang robbed cash and gold totally worth Rs1.83 crore after threatening the bank manager and cashier.
The suspects reached the bank in a blue-coloured sedan and drove away towards Ahmednagar after collecting the booty, officers from the Pune rural police said. The loot included Rs33 lakh in cash, and gold so far assessed at Rs1.50 crore. The bank officials were still in the process of assessing the robbed gold, which may push up the value of the loot, police said.
One of the gang members waited in the car while the others proceeded towards the bank. One of them stood at the entrance while the other four moved in to collect the booty, police said citing evidence collected through CCTV footage.
Five staffers had reported for duty on Thursday. Three of them were on lunch break, with only the manager and the cashier inside when the dacoits came, police added.
Late on Thursday evening, bank cashier Sagar Panmand lodged a complaint with the Shirur police and a case under Section 395 (dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code was registered.
Superintendent of Pune Rural police Abhinav Deshmukh told TOI, “The gang executed the dacoity in 30 minutes. All five men who approached the bank were wearing hoodies and masks. Two of them were carrying pistols. Four men walked inside and threatened the bank manager and the cashier, asking them to remove all cash and gold from the safes.”
Deshmukh said the manager and the cashier did not resist the armed intruders as they were held at gunpoint. “The intruders collected the cash and gold and walked out of the bank,” said Deshmukh.
Deshmukh said the bank does not have a guard and that there was security alarm. However, the officials were so frightened that they failed to press the alarm bell button. “Going by the circumstances, we suspect the armed men may have conducted a recce of the bank premises before committing the dacoity. They chose a time when the bank does not have customers and bank staffers go out to have lunch,” he said.