KOCHI: Even after 10 days, the investigation team probing the twin ATM robberies is groping in the dark as the sleuths could not garner any vital clue to track down the migrants suspected to be behind the Rs 35-lakh heist.
According to the officers, the inquiry is progressing with focus on the migrant workers who went missing from Kottayam and Thrissur districts prior to the incident, to check whether any of them were involved in the crime. However, it is learnt the investigators have been unable to make a breakthrough in the probe so far.The police had constituted a special investigation team (SIT) headed by the Kochi City Police Commissioner and comprising police chiefs of Kottayam and Thrissur Rural, Kochi City DCP, and DySPs concerned from the three districts as members, to probe the case.
The officers said they have handed over the visuals of suspects to the State Crime Records Bureau, which would forward them to the National Crime Records Bureau for potential matches with the criminals listed in their database.
Though a video footage obtained from near the location where the thieves’ vehicle was found abandoned at Chalakudy, showed a seven-member group moving around in the area, the police are yet to ascertain whether this gang operated the heist.
"The probe is on. We cannot disclose the developments at present," said Thrikkakara ACP P Shams.
The police suspect a gang of migrants is behind the ATM robberies in Ernakulam and Thrissur districts and the failed attempts in Kottayam district. The gang broke into an SBI ATM at Irumpanam using a gas cutter and looted Rs 25 lakh at 3.30 am on October 12.
One-and-a-half hours later, Rs 10 lakh was robbed from an ATM at Koratty. Theft bids were made on the same night at Kalamassery in Ernakulam as well as at Monippally and Vembally in Kottayam.Though the burglars were masked, their faces were caught in cameras kept inside the ATM machine and those inside the kiosk.
The investigation team later recovered a vehicle suspected to be used by the gang near the railway station at Chalakudy, triggering suspicions that they might have fled the state.