ROURKELA: In a daring daylight bank heist, unidentified armed miscreants looted about Rs 42 lakh from the Rourkela branch of Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) at gun point on Tuesday. Sources said the miscreants armed with firearms arrived at the bank, located on the first floor of a building at busy Madhusudan Marg area under Plant Site police limits at about 9.50 am.
They barged into the branch as there was no security personnel at the entrance and held all bank employees hostage before decamping with the amount. Chief Manager of the branch Sanjay Kumar Jha said about seven to eight armed miscreants entered into the bank and started thrashing bank employees including him to terrorise them."They also held hostage the customers entering the bank and made them kneel at a corner of the building.
They forcibly took the keys of the strong room and looted about Rs 42 lakh within half-an-hour before fleeing from the scene," he said. Jha informed while one of the miscreants was wearing helmet, faces of others were visible. They failed to protest as the miscreants overpowered the employees. Rourkela SP Dr Uma Shankar Dash said it was a well-planned heist as the dacoits have taken away the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) of CCTV cameras while escaping from the spot.
"All escape routes have been sealed and an alert has been sounded in the area. Police officials of neighbouring police stations have been informed about the dacoity. We are verifying details to get a lead on the miscreants," he said.Asked if the criminals were local or from adjacent Jharkhand, the SP said investigation is on to get whereabouts of the dacoits and whether there is any link with other such heists reported in the recent past. The miscreants also snatched a gold chain from a woman bank employee.
DIG of Police (Western Range) Kabita Jalan has visited the branch to take stock of the situation. Reports said the miscreants had held small firearms while one among them was reportedly having a carbine. It is suspected that the man wearing helmet could be the local conduit of the gang.
Incidentally, six armed miscreants had looted mortgaged gold worth around Rs 3 crore and some cash from the office of the Gold Finance Division of the Indian Infoline Finance Ltd at the same locality at about 4 pm on July 8, 2016. They had also fled with DVR of the surveillance cameras in a similar fashion.