This is one bank robbery bid that the Tiruvallur cops are more amused than agitated about. A lungi-clad, masked bank robber broke into a village bank near Minjur without any safe-breaking tools and tried to crack it open. However, he realized the futility of his robbery attempt and left the little bank in just over 20 mins, said Minjur police officials. Which was just as well, as the Indian Overseas Bank bank in the village of Vallur was believed to have Rs 43 lakh in cash and 75 sovereigns of gold jewellery.
According to the Minjur police, a man with a handkerchief tied across his face, broke the lock on the main door of the bank and entered at around 3.20 am on Friday. As the bank was housed in a private building, there was no security guard and the door wasn’t very heavy-duty. While he was smart enough to break one surveillance video camera, he somehow failed to spot another CCTV camera that was placed on another wall in the bank.
“This is how we got his image and established that he wasn’t a very professional thief,” said a bemused police official. “In fact, he used his cell phone to provide light for visibility,” he added.
As the police scanned the surveillance tape, they found that the man made a beeline for the accountants tables and began rifling through - ostensibly looking for petty cash. “Only in the last five minutes did he think of trying to break the safe in the locker room,” said the official. By then, frustration and fear must have driven him to abandon the attempt and flee the bank.
While there hasn’t been any money lost by the bank, the police are still casing out local migrants and criminals with prior indictments, who were in the area. The Ponneri DSP told Express that they were chasing a few leads and that an arrest was imminent. He also added that this would be a wake-up call for establishments to increase security measures.
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