BHOPAL: A gang suspected to be from Bihar is believed to be behind the major robbery at a Bank of Maharashtra branch in Singrauli district of eastern Madhya Pradesh on Friday afternoon.
While Madhya Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Kailash Makwana announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for information leading to the arrest of the five men who carried out the gunpoint robbery at a bank in Waidhan town of Singrauli district on Friday afternoon, sources close to the investigation said that two of the suspects have possibly been tracked and detained at separate locations in Bihar on Saturday.
As per informed sources, while one of the men suspected to be involved in the robbery has been detained in Aurangabad district of south-western Bihar, another man is believed to have been tracked and is being questioned in a district in the vicinity of the eastern state’s capital Patna.
Sources in the knowhow of things told the TNIE that Aurangabad district has been infamous in the past also for gangs and youngsters who have committed bank heists in Bihar as well as other states.
Earlier, on Friday, five men armed with country-made pistols (one of them covering face with a helmet) had stormed into the Bank of Maharashtra branch in Waidhan town of Singrauli district at around 12.50 pm and in the next 20 minutes robbed at gunpoint gold and cash running into crores of rupees (Rs 10-15 crores).
While the cash component on the booty was Rs 20.20 lakh, the gold reportedly weighing around seven kg was possibly worth over Rs 10 crores, actually representing the yellow metal which was pledged by customers to secure gold loan worth over Rs 5.50 crore.
The armed robbers first fired in the air in the security guard-less bank premises, then held the staff and customers captive at gunpoint, before decamping on two motorcycles with the booty.
While the robbers were fleeing on two motorcycles, a country-made pistol from one of them fell at a spot, around a km from the bank branch where committed the robbery.
Just a few hours after the major bank robbery, the MP DGP Kailash Makwana rushed to Singrauli district on Friday late night and was himself guiding senior police officials and multiple teams of cops on the ground to crack the case at the earliest.
Pictures of the accused retrieved CCTV grabs, were also released in MP and neighbouring states to track and nab them.
The central Indian state’s police are coordinating with counterparts in adjoining states, particularly UP, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, especially as the Waidhan town is in the proximity of the trisection of those three states.