2 armed robbers loot Rs 12 lakh from bank near Jodhpur

JODHPUR: Two armed robbers looted Rs 12 lakh from a bank in Gangani village near Jodhpur on Wednesday morning. They entered the bank barely after it was opened in the morning and fled with the money in just 10 minutes.
Both the accused had their faces wrapped with hankies to hide their identity. One of them had a pistol in his hand, while the other had a knife with him to threaten the bank staff. Police have begun a hunt for the accused based on the video grabs captured by the cameras in the bank and have set up nakabandi at different routes.
According to ACP Rajendra Prasad Diwakar, the incident took place in a branch of SBI in village Gangani on Jodhpur-Nagaur highway at about 10.45am on Wednesday barely sometime after the doors of the bank were opened for the day.
“Bank had just opened at about 10am and the staff members were about to begin their day when two persons with their faces wrapped with hankies and one of them wielding a pistol and other waving a knife, barged into the bank and locked entire staff including the guard, who was present in one of the chambers,” said Diwakar.
They also threatened a few customers, who had come to withdraw cash and one of them headed straight to the cashier and threatened him with the knife, while the one with the pistol kept watch around waving his pistol.
“At cashier’s chamber, he picked all the cash available there and stuffed the entire money into a bag, which they had brought with them,” said Diwakar. They executed the loot in just 10-15 minutes and fled from the bank with the cash on a motorcycle. Total amount looted was later counted as Rs 11.95 lakh.
Diwakar said that the police have filed a case on the complaint of the bank manager and have been trying to identify both of them. “We have initiated a search operation to hunt them and have set up nakabandi in entire area. Besides, we are also checking the CCTV footage from the cameras around,” he said.
In past one month, this is the third such incident where the banks have been looted in similar manner by the persons with similar appearance. In the two previous incidents also, the targets were the small branches from rural areas, which included SBI branch in village Khandap in Barmer and village Roon in Nagaur. While a sum of Rs 5.23 lakh had been looted in the former incident, Rs 94,000 were looted in the later incident. Police have not achieved any breakthrough in any of these incidents either.