2 held for bank robbery, cashier’s murder
MANHUNT ON Areas in Delhi, Haryana under lockdown as police conduct dozens of raids to track remaining assailants
NEW DELHI: A day after a cashier was shot dead during a bank robbery i n southwest Delhi’s Chhawla, the Delhi Police on Saturday arrested two of the six alleged robbers. Several areas across Delhi and Haryana were under lockdown as a massive manhunt for the remaining dacoits was launched, police said.
Deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said that while the first man was arrested from Delhi-haryana border during the early hours of Saturday, the second was nabbed from Haryana later in the evening. More than 50 police teams had been conducting raids since Friday, Alphonse said.
“We arrested Sachin alias Sonu, hailing from Sonepat, Haryana. He is one of the men who we believe were involved. He has confessed to the crime. There were five others who have been identified and further raids are on at their possible hideouts in Haryana and Delhi. Later, the second man Parvesh (19), hailing from Sonepat, was also arrested,” Alphonse said.
“We have requested for their police remand so that they can be further questioned. We will also recreate the crime scene and a possibility of assailants’ links to some organised gangs in Delhi and Haryana is being looked
into,” Alphonse said.
The robbery took place on Friday around 3.30pm at Corporation Bank in Chhawla. Witnesses and bank employees told police that the six masked men, three of them armed, barged into the bank and snatched the security guard’s rifle. They looted ₹3.1 lakh in cash after shooting the cashier.
The bank’s branch manager Prabhakar Kumar said, “They threatened us and asked us to lock ourselves inside my cabin and bathroom. They assaulted two-three customers who tried to escape and fired a few shots in the air to intimidate us. Santosh Kumar was the last one to rush to the bathroom. Before he could enter the room he was shot from the behind,” Kumar said.
He said the men then went to cashier’s cabin and collected as much cash they could and left.
Police said that the dacoity was over within seven minutes and the men sped away on three motorcycles. DCP Alphonse also said that involvement of more than six men in the heist could not be ruled out as of now.
The DCP said teams from the Chhawla police station and the Dwarka special staff scanned CCTV footages from more than 100 cameras on the road leading to the bank and in the direction that the robbers had fled.
“In the footage, we found that a few hours before the roobery, two men who looked like two of the assailants appeared to have recced the bank. More footage was checked and their involvement was ascertained. Further investigations then helped us identify Sachin and we mounted technical surveillance. In a late night raid, assistant commissioner of police Rajendra Singh (Dwarka) and assistant commissioner of police Vijay Chandel (Chhawla) arrested Sachin from Delhi-haryana border,” the DCP said.
The CCTV footage from the bank showing the robbery had gone viral on social media.
The police are yet to ascertain who of the six men had shot the cashier dead, the DCP said, adding that the looted cash is yet to be recovered.