HYDERABAD: Rachakonda police cracked an ATM theft case within 23 days and arrested five persons on Wednesday.
Rachakonda Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu said that the accused were arrested at Kongarakalan on the city outskirts while they were planning another offense.
The police arrested Rahul alias Rahul Khan (25), Musthakeem Khan (28), Sharukh Bashir Khan (25), Waheed Khan (18), Shakeel Khan (24), and Mohammed Sarfaraz (28). One of the accused, Sharukh Bashir Khan alias Saroop, was arrested by Visakhapatnam police on March 21. Four other accused are on the run.
The five thieves, hailing from Haryana and Rajasthan, reached the SBI branch at Ravirala in a car at around 1:55 am on March 2, broke open the ATM using a gas cutter and fled with Rs 29.69 lakh in cash. They finished the operation in three minutes. The accused sprayed black paint on the CCTV camera in the ATM room in a bid to conceal their identity. The Rachakonda police formed five teams to track down the thieves.
According to Sudheer Babu, the accused conducted a recce of isolated places on the outskirts of the city and chose the Ravirala ATM.
Talking about the expertise employed by the thieves in opening the ATM and stealing money in a short time, bank officials told TNIE that the thieves target only Diebold ATM machines. “They are old ATM machines. Now, we are gradually replacing them with modern ATMs,” a bank official added.