The Chelembra bank robbery case, in which Rs 8 crore worth of gold and Rs 25 lakh were robbed from the Chelembra branch of South Malabar Gramin Bank is known as the most exciting crime in the history of bank robberies in the country.
The robbery was inspired by the Bollywood movie Dhoom. Interestingly, the cat-and-mouse game between the special investigation team led by the then Malappuram district police chief P Vijayan and the four thieves was more exciting than the crime itself. The method used by the police team to find the culprits is now rendered as the mother of all bank robbery investigations.
“We have excelled far better than the cunning brain of prime culprit in the case, Joseph. It was a meticulously planned robbery with a very neat plot. The gang has used many methods to deviate the investigation. But the professional excellence of the special investigation team excelled at last and nabbed all the accused within 56 days,” Vijayan said.
To mislead the police, the gang had written ‘Jai Maoist’ on the walls—taking advantage of other bank robberies by Naxals in various parts of the country. The investigation team travelled to Chhattisgarh to investigate the Maoist link. Police began investigation from a pair of sandals, liquor bottle, a set of detonators used for the explosion and a broken piece of the blade from a concrete drilling machine. The investigation team checked around 20 lakh phone calls and identified the prime culprit behind the robbery. A team comprising of forensic experts, explosive experts and civil-mechanical engineers helped the police in the investigation. The four accused directly involved in the crime were nabbed on February 25, 2008, from Kozhikode. The police have recovered some chunk of stolen gold. Around 16 kilograms is still to be found. It is the brilliance of investigation which led to rigorous imprisonment for all the four culprits. It has been an excellent example of team work of police officers that comprised KK Ibrahim, P Vikraman, MP Mohanachandran and AP Shoukathali.
The Sunday Standard