On a quiet Friday afternoon, February 14, the sleepy town of Potta near Chalakkudy was jolted awake by a daring daylight bank robbery. A masked man walked into the Federal Bank branch, brandishing a knife, and walked out minutes later with Rs 15 lakh in cash.
It had all the elements of a perfect heist — months of planning, disguise, a fake number plate, multiple clothing changes, and a calculated escape route through bylanes. But despite the elaborate preparations, the Kerala police needed less than 48 hours to unmask the man behind the robbery: Rijo Antony, a Gulf returnee from Asharippara.
Around 2.15pm that day, a man clad in a jacket and helmet parked his grey TVS NTorq scooter outside the bank. He entered, pulled out a knife, and ordered the startled employees into a back room. Speaking in broken Hindi — perhaps in a bid to mislead — the man threatened them but didn’t cause harm. He made his way to the cash section, grabbed bundles totalling Rs15 lakh, and vanished into the streets on his scooter. The entire act took less than 15 minutes.
By 2.45 pm, the police had reached the scene, alerted by a staff member immediately after the robber fled. But he had already disappeared.
Thrissur Rural Police Chief B Krishna Kumar and Chalakkudy DySP Sumesh K rushed to the spot and formed four separate investigation teams. One team scoured CCTV footage in the vicinity; another traced the vehicle using its number plate; a third gathered eyewitness accounts; and the fourth tapped into mobile data in the area.
“At first glance, it didn’t look like the work of a hardened criminal,” says an officer involved in the probe. “He spoke in broken Hindi, suggesting he was a local trying to mislead. Also, he didn’t harm anyone and only took Rs15 lakh, though more money was accessible.”
The CCTV footage, though helpful, added layers of complexity. The number plate on the scooter turned out to be fake — stolen from another two-wheeler parked outside a church weeks earlier. The scooter itself was a popular model in the area, with over 500 similar grey NTorqs sold locally. Investigators decided to visit each owner.
Many matches turned up while examining CCTV footage from houses across Chalakuddy, but one clip from a house in Asharippara caught the eye. The rider had a distinct pot belly — just like the robber. However, there was a twist: the scooter had rear-view mirrors, while the getaway vehicle seen outside the bank did not. Still, one clue tied everything together: the rider’s shoes — black with white markings — matched those worn during the robbery.
Armed with this lead, police fanned out across Asharippara. On February 16, officers showed the CCTV footage to local residents. Most couldn’t identify the helmet-clad rider. But one resident pointed toward a familiar figure — Rijo Antony.
Police reached Rijo’s home on the same day evening. He seemed unfased by their presence. While one team engaged him in conversation, another quietly gathered more background. They learned that Rijo had visited the same bank days earlier to resolve ATM issues. He’d also been seen frequently in the area in the week leading up to the crime.
Originally from Meloor, Rijo had returned from the Gulf and settled in Asharippara. Under pressure and burdened by a debt of around Rs40 lakh, he admitted to police that the robbery was his last-ditch effort to raise Rs12 lakh before his wife returned from Kuwait.
“Initially, he resisted. But eventually, he confessed,” the officer says. “He had studied police methods from films and news, thinking he could outsmart us.”
Rijo’s preparation was meticulous. He timed the robbery around the bank staff’s afternoon break. He layered three T-shirts under a jacket, removed the mirrors from his scooter, and swapped clothes at an isolated spot after the crime. The fake number plate was discarded in a quarry. Confident he’d fooled everyone, he even joined friends for a drink that night and participated in a prayer meeting at his home — where, ironically, the robbery was a hot topic of discussion.
“He didn’t show an ounce of worry,” the officer adds. “He thought he was smarter than us. But even the best-laid plans leave traces. And we follow every single one.”