Bank services hit as thief makes off with router yet again in Gurugram

Daily operations at a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in Narsinghpur ground to a halt on Tuesday and Wednesday for the second time in two months after a man stole an intranet router mistaking it for the digital video recorder of a CCTV camera early Monday, said police on Wednesday.

The theft came to light when the branch opened after Diwali on Tuesday and staff found that their network was non-functional. They soon spotted the broken ventilator grille and realised that someone had broken in again, bank officials said.

The Narsinghpur branch employs 25 staffers and handles over 15,000 savings bank accounts with an overall deposit of at least ₹700 crore. All transactions are operated through the server.

On September 6, an as yet unidentified suspect— whose head and torso were wrapped in what appeared to be a thick blanket — allegedly broke into the bank at 3.25am and searched for money for one-and-a-half hours. He tried to break the iron safe inside the bank with a pair of pliers but failed; eventually making off with the router mistaking it for the CCTV digital video recorder. His movements were caught on camera and police began an investigation. As the bank remained dysfunctional the whole day, the local head office (LHO) of SBI, Delhi, sent a new router the same night for installation.

Police on Wednesday said they suspect that the same man is responsible for both break-ins.

According to police, the suspect entered the bank at 2.32am on Monday through a ventilator after cutting its iron grilles. He left the branch at 4.01am after rifling through all the drawers.

Parveen Kumar Beniwal, the branch’s chief manager, said that the router he stole on Monday was the new one installed after the previous theft.

“Like last time, the suspect again tried to take out cash from the iron safe but failed. He had brought only a hexa-blade which he used to cut a ventilator’s iron grilles to gain entrance. The blade was found inside the branch,” he alleged.

Beniwal alleged that from the CCTV camera footage of both incidents, it was clear that the same suspect had broken in.

“This time again, he wanted to take away the CCTV DVR to get rid of the footage of his movements but repeated his mistake in the dark and ended up decamping with our router instead, which completely disrupted banking works,” he alleged.

Beniwal said there were fewer customers the day after Diwali on Tuesday, but banking was affected as no transaction could occur. “On a normal day, up to 300 transactions take place at the branch,” he said.

Technical experts of SBI reached the branch on Wednesday evening with a new router from LHO and restored the intranet connection over which banking takes place, bank officials said. They said regular banking would resume at the branch on Thursday.

“Police should have taken prompt action soon after the first theft. We provided clear CCTV camera footage of the suspect to them. However, he was not arrested and committed the same crime again,” Beniwal said.

A senior police officer said that fingerprint experts and a dog squad also visited the spot and collected samples.

“We collected the suspect’s fingerprints from the spot. This time he won’t be able to evade arrest for long,” the officer said.

On Beniwal’s complaint, an FIR against the suspect was registered under sections 380 (theft in dwelling house) and 457 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night) of the Indian Penal Code at the Badshahpur police station on Tuesday.

Sub-inspector Umesh Kumar, in-charge of SPR police post, also said that they suspect the same person’s involvement in both incidents. “Police will arrest him soon,” he added.