Rs31 lakh looted in Jharkhand in twin strikes

Call it a mere coincidence or a well hatched conspiracy, loot of Rs 20 lakh and a theft of Rs 11 lakh have been reported from two different districts involving the same finance company-- Bharat Finance Inclusion Limited (BFIL).

The incidents occurred within a span of 24 hours (Sunday-Monday) in Pakur and Dhanbad districts.

“Thieves broke into BFIL’s branch office in Pakur on Sunday night and decamped with a locker containing Rs 11.23 lakh,” claimed Sunil Kumar, the company’s branch manager in his complaint lodged with Pakur police.

Kumar mentioned that he and other employees noticed the broken grill of the window when the bank opened for the day. “We found that the thieves also tried to break other lockers, “ he alleged in the complaint.

In another incident, two motorcycle borne criminals looted Rs 20 lakh from two employees of the same company on Monday afternoon while they were coming out of City Centre based Axis bank branch in Dhanbad after withdrawing the sum.

Two criminals on a motorcycle first hit the employees of BFIL while the other two, on another motorcycle, snatched the bag from them and escaped.

The employees Rajkumar Kushwaha and Kishor Kumar Sinha were on their way to BFIL office located at JC Mallik road in Hirapur when the incident took place .

“We often used to come to the bank to deposit and withdraw money,” said Kushwaha in an interaction with the police. He claimed they attempted to chase the criminals driving a black Pulsar motorcycle but they managed to escape .

Superintendent of Police( SP) City Anshuman Kumar and deputy superintendent of police (DSP) DN Banka reached the bank branch soon after incident was reported and interrogated the bank employees, as well as victims. The police also went through the CCTV footage to get first hand information about the incident.

SP City said, police had sought mobile call details of both employees from respective service providers.

“We are also trying to ascertain if someone was keeping an eye on movement of the employees inside the bank, as the incident took place immediately after they came out of the branch,” said SP City .