Burglars cut open ATM cash chest, make away with ₹8.4 lakh

LUCKNOW : Burglars made away with ₹8.40 lakh after cutting open the ATM currency chest at a booth of Canara Bank near Matiyari crossing on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, said police.

The incident took place barely a few metres from the Matiyari police outpost, but the theft was noticed when a sanitation worker came to clean the booth around 8am. The bank manager, Vaibhav Mishra, informed the cops after being alerted by the worker.

This was the second such incident in the past five days when a gang damaged the currency chest of a machine to steal cash. The police suspected the role of the same gang in both the incidents.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (east), Qasim Abidi, said the CCTV footage of the booth adjoining Canara Bank branch at Matiyari crossing showed that three people were involved in the theft.

The trio reached the spot in an auto and used gas cutter to cut open the currency chest, he said. The ADCP said the CCTV footage showed that the three masked burglars stayed at the booth for around an hour.

In a similar incident, the currency chest of an ATM of Oriental Bank of Commerce was damaged at a booth in Vibhuti Khand on February 2, but the machine had only ₹5,000, said another senior police official.

He said there were multiple similarities between the two incidents as in both cases masked burglars reached the spot in an auto and cab while a gas cutter was used to cut the currency chest in both the theft incidents. “The CCTV camera captured the footage of two burglars in the February 2 incident while the visual of three burglars was captured in the Sunday incident,” he added. Lcnow commissioner of police (CP) DK Thakur visited the crime scene and gave necessary instructions to work out the case.