KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Sept 6: A team from the Jamshedpur police has rushed to Dhanbad in sequel to the investigation into the Ulidih bank robbery having taken place recently, soon after an abortive bid of robbery that took place in the coal city on Tuesday morning.
The East Singhbhum district police prompted to send a team to Dhanbad as the modus operandi in the robbery committed at Bank of India’s Ulidih branch in Mango on August 18 and the failed robbery at the office of Muthoot Finance there in Dhanbad today was reportedly the same.
During the robbery attempt at the Muthoot Finance office in Dhanbad around 10 am today, a gang of five armed robbers had started robbing the cash and stock of the gold ornaments. But timely intervention of the police had foiled the attempt.
Significantly, the robbers had opened fired at the police on their arrival near the crime scene, but the police acted with alacrity and succeeded in gunning down one of the robbers and nabbing two robbers.
Superintendent of police (City) K Vijay Shankar said the senior SP, Prabhat Kumar had convened a meeting soon after getting the news about the failed robbery in Dhanbad and decided to send a police team there on the suspicion that it must be the same gang that had committed the robbery in Ulidih recently.
“Though we are yet to get details about the failed robbery in Dhanbad, but in view of the timing of the robbery and the number of criminals involved in the robbery matched what had happened in the robbery at Ulidih. Moreover, like in the Ulidih robbery, the robbers had used motorcycles while swooping over the Muthoot Finance office today,” said Vijay Shankar while talking to lagatar24.com.
The City SP, on being queried stated that they suspected that at least two of the robbers involved in the failed robbery were in the Ulidih robbery also.
“We have made toilsome work for detecting the Ulidih robbery by sending teams to over half-a-dozen states to trace the criminals. During the investigation, we had information regarding some of the robbers involved in the Ulidih robbery, ” said the senior police officer.
He informed that the names and whereabouts of the two robbers nabbed are being verified. We will be in a better position to tell something solid after the Dhanbad police completes the initial investigation, ” Vijay Shankar pointed out.
A gang of about five-six robbers had swooped over the Bank of India’s Ulidih branch at about 10.30 am on August 18 and decamped with Rs 33.5 lakhs cash and gold ornaments worth over Rs 80 lakhs having taken the bank officials hostage on gun point.