BARIPADA: In a daring daylight heist, a group of miscreants armed with guns and sharp weapons looted around Rs 8 lakh from Kuchei Gramya Bank branch within Kuliana police limits in Mayurbhanj district on Tuesday.
The robbery took place at around 2.45 pm when customers were present inside the bank. Sources said five armed miscreants, all wearing helmets, arrived on two motorcycles and parked right in front of the bank. Brandishing guns and sharp weapons, they stormed into the branch. The miscreants terrorised the customers and warned them not to make any phone call.
While one of the miscreants approached the cashier and demanded cash from the counter drawers, another held the bank manager, Ranjita Soren, hostage at gunpoint and threatened her not to alert the police. In the meantime, other members of the gang collected mobile phones from all the staff, seized the computer hard disks, and got hold of the key to the main gate.
Within minutes, the gang looted the cash, locked the main gate from outside, and fled on their motorcycles. Before leaving, they threw the mobile phones and gate key outside the bank premises.
Soren said the amount looted by the miscreants would be between `6 lakh and `8 lakh. She informed that the robbers communicated in Hindi, Bengali and partly in Odia, suggesting they may have come from outside the state.
Given Kuliana’s proximity to the borders of West Bengal and Jharkhand, police suspect the miscreants may have fled across the state border after carrying out the heist.
On being informed, DIG (Eastern Range) Satyajit Naik, Baripada sub-divisional police officer Pravat Mallick and Kuliana IIC Madhusmita Mohanty reached the crime scene and launched an investigation. Police are currently scanning the footage of CCTV cameras installed in the area to identify the miscreants.