Just around the time people appeared in ‘Money Heist’ masks and red jumpsuits, held placards to say “We only rob banks...” in Hyderabad, a real heist, sans the costume but using a red domestic LPG cylinder to cut open a safe, took place in Nizamabad, about 200 km from here.
The robbery at Telangana Grameena Bank branch at Bussapur village of Mendora mandal in Nizamabad district, officials believe, took place around Sunday night. The scene was discovered by officials only on Monday, when they opened the bank for business. Pictures of the scenes at the strong room showed a safe vertically cut open from its locked side, debris of a damaged wall, a crow bar and a gas cylinder used in the robbery.
It was suspected that the robbers arrived in a multi-utility vehicle, parked it near the BSNL office adjacent the bank and forced open the bank shutters and grills. They had also damaged the bank’s CCTV equipment before breaking in.
Nizamabad Police Commissioner K.R. Nagaraju disclosed more details to media persons on Monday and said about ₹ 7 lakh cash and valuable documents stored in the safe were burnt in the process of gas-cutting the door.
"Gold ornaments pledged by customers, valued at about ₹ 2.5 crore and some other cash has been identified as missing. We suspect the robbery was committed by a six or eight-member gang, and they must be hailing from Maharashtra," Mr. Nagaraju said.
He expressed confidence that several sets of fingerprints and other material collected by the Clues team from the crime scene was crucial evidence that would lead to nabbing the accused soon.
Nizamabad police have formed special teams to examine available CCTV footage, conduct physical searches on the highways and analyse crime data of offenders, particularly of those hailing from Maharashtra.
