Bank robbers kill 2, fail to break in

NOIDA: Two security guards were killed in what appeared to be an attempt to rob a branch of the state-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Sector 1, Noida, in the early hours of Friday, according to the police.

The incident occurred in the guard room of the PNB’s circle office branch at around 2.30am, where the bodies of the two guards were found by the police at around 7.30am. There were signs of a struggle in the room, police said.

The victims were identified as Mukesh Kumar Yadav (25), a resident of Mainpuri who was living with his brother in Noida’s Harola village, and Mudrika Prasad (47), a native of Bihar who was living with his family in Delhi’s Kalyanpuri area. They had been beaten, apparently with sticks, and had multiple head injuries.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras captured two assailants entering the bank a little before 3 am, but the police are yet to locate or identify them. They appeared to have taken the keys to the front door of the bank from the guards after killing them.

“There could be more people but the chances are that the two seen on camera were the only ones. One of them seems to be in his late teens and the other in his early 20s. They were both masked, and one of them was in a guard’s uniform,” said senior superintendent of police Ajay Pal Sharma.

He said the motive behind the murder was not clear, but it appeared to be an attempted robbery. “It seems the accused were small-time thieves because they did not go near the strongroom in the basement of the bank. They just went through some of the documents. It seems from CCTV footage that they were looking for immediate cash,” Sharma said, adding that nothing of value appeared to be missing.