Breakthrough in bank robbery case

They were habitual property offenders. One day they walked into a UCO Bank branch on the city outskirts and allegedly looted it of Rs. 30 lakhs. D. ARVIND writes as to how the police have had a breakthrough in the case.

PAATIGHANPUR IS a sleepy village about two km from Patancheru in Medak district. A branch of the UCO Bank located in a secluded area of Paatighanpur, operating without any armed security guard, is an easy target for robbers.

The slumberous hamlet was jolted with one single incident on the afternoon of April 10. Three armed persons just walked into the bank. At that time about half a dozen staff members and four-odd customers were present. Needless to say, seeing the trio brandishing the firearms, they all paled out.

The brigands at gunpoint made the staff open the strongroom and collected gold weighing over seven kg and a sum of Rs. 99,000, all worth over Rs. 30 lakhs. They fled on two scooters which did not have number plates. About an hour after the robbery the Patancheru police were alerted. After the usual hustle and bustle at the crime spot, the police could hardly find any substantial clues. With the description of the robbers given by eyewitnesses alone being their main clue, the police set out on a wild goose chase.

Special teams fanned out to different parts of the State and all the police stations were alerted, but this didn't help. Their last hope was that the robbers would either fall apart due to differences in sharing the booty or while disposing of the gold. But, the faceless and elusive robbers turned out to be more intelligent. Sensing the risk of being nabbed, they did not dispose of the gold.

After making efforts the police were left with the only option of waiting patiently for some kind of lead to zero in on the robbers. During their course of investigation it became clear that henchmen of Sivaprasad Reddy (one of the acquitted in the Jubilee Hills car bomb blast case, who was murdered near Erragadda on April 26) might have been involved in the robbery.

Meanwhile, during the last week of May, the Banjara Hills police nabbed some property offenders and on the suspicion that one of the arrested might be involved in the bank robbery they alerted the Medak police. The Medak police accompanied by the staff of UCO Bank went to Banjara Hills police station for an identification parade. But, they had to return disappointed as they could not find the bank robbers among the arrested persons.

With the passage of time as the hope of tracing the brigands seemed to be fading, the Medak police received a call from their Banjara Hills counterparts on June 5 for another round of identification parade. And the second time the police were lucky that the bank staff identified one of the robbers among a group of persons arrested by the Banjara Hills police.

One of the alleged bank robbers, Rajkumar Rai alias Raju, had been arrested in a car theft case. Rajkumar had fled with the car of his employer which also had a briefcase containing Rs. 4 lakhs. And like predator awaiting long for the prey, this lead was enough to crack the case. On his information the police managed to nab three more accused persons -- S. Raju, Prasad and Satyanarayana -- in and around the Medak area. Another accused, Gopal, was still at large.

Rajkumar, Raju and Prasad had allegedly committed the bank robbery. Satyanarayana and Gopal had made the plan. The police recovered three-kg gold, Rs. 70,000 in cash and three countrymade pistols buried at their hideouts. Rajkumar had procured the firearms from Bihar.

They all were habitual property offenders. After the robbery they went underground. Originally, they had planned to loot buses transporting bank money and also to target vehicles carrying huge amounts of commission money of a private company in Kukatpally. But when their plans did not materialise they found out an easy target in the Paatighanpur branch of UCO Bank.

(The Medak Inspectors -- Messrs. Ranga Reddy and Sunkara Satyanarayana -- and the Sub-Inspector, Md. Ali, and the city Inspector, Mr. K. Ramachandran, investigated the case).

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