KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Sept 14: City police solved the Bank of India’s Ulidih branch robbery involving cash and gold ornaments worth over Rs 1.5 crores by arresting two persons today. Those arrested today were identified as Bhagwat Thakur (41) and Khagendra Narayan Singh alias Sonu (30), both residents of Vaishali district and Darbhanga district of Bihar respectively.
The Jamshedpur police succeeded to solve the Ulidih bank robbery case committed on August 18 after getting a clue from the arrested robbers involved in the failed robbery at the Muthoot Finance office in Dhanbad on September 6.
The Dhanbad police had successfully prevented the robbery in the finance company office by killing one of the robbers and arresting two from the spot.
As the modus operandi of the Ulidih bank robbery here in Mango and the failed robbery at the finance company office was almost the same, a team of police officials from Jamshedpur had rushed to Dhanbad the same day and had interrogated the two arrested robbers there and had gathered enough information from them regarding the Ulidih robbery before finally arresting two of the robbers today as the same gang was involved in both the robberies.
Revealing the breakthrough, senior SP, Prabhat Kumar said that it was an inter-state gang that had committed the robbery at the Ulidih branch of the Bank of India in Mango on August 18 morning.
“The gang leader Rajiv Singh who is presently lodged in Beur Jail in Patna had carried out the robbery in Ulidih bank from the jail itself by means of his associates operating outside,” said Kumar while addressing a press conference here today.
The senior SP said six robbers had come in a container from Patna and parked the vehicle somewhere between Chandil and Jamshedpur along the NH-33 and had reached to Ulidih by riding two stolen bikes, which had also been carried in the same container. Having committed the robbery, they had travelled by the same container before abandoning it at an isolated place in Calcutta, ” narrated Kumar.
The senior police officer said that the robbers had decamped with Rs 33.5 lakhs cash and gold ornaments weighing over two kgs worth Rs 1.13 crores from the Ulidih branch of the Bank of India.
He pointed out the police succeeded to recover Rs 6,000 from the container driver who had been paid Rs 20,000 as his remuneration. He said the rest of the cash and gold ornaments have been taken to out of the country and an attempt to get them back is on.
Kumar said during interrogation those arrested confessed that it was the gang of Rajiv Singh which had looted Rs 32 lakhs from a Bistupur-based jeweller in Bistupur on February 14 this year.
The senior SP said that the gang members were from Gaya, Motihari, Vaishali and Darbhanga districts of Bihar and used to commit robberies after carrying out a recce of any bank or finance company, adding that attempt to arrest the rest of the accused is on
