Robbers loot bank in 8-hour-long heist
Four robbers broke into a bank near Sakhi Hasan Chowrangi in North Nazimabad, Karachi on Saturday and looted cash worth millions of rupees, jewellery, prize bonds and other valuables.
The initial investigation has revealed that the robbers had taken the bank's security guard, Inam, hostage when he returned to duty at around 9pm after having dinner with his friend. They tied Inam to a chair and managed to break and loot 34 lockers at the bank during the eight-hour long robbery.
After a visit to the crime scene, Crime Investigation Department SSP Haider Raza told media persons that it seemed that the robbery had been planned and the perpetrators were aware that repair work was in progress at the bank in question. They also knew that only one security guard was deputed at the bank and he routinely took a break to have dinner, said the SSP.
The robbers brought with them welding equipment, cutters, rods and other tools to break the lockers.
They were in the bank for eight hours, until 5am on Sunday, he said, adding that a security alarm had gone off around 11pm.
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"Alerted by the alarm, some bank employees visited the bank, but did not enter it. They checked the bank from the outside and went away," said SSP Raza. "As the robbers were fleeing, two of them bumped into some staffers who visited the bank again at night. However, the instance did not rouse the bank employees' suspicion and the robbers managed to escape."
While fleeing, the robbers took away the digital video recorders (DVR) of CCTV cameras installed in the bank as well.
According to the SSP, other security guards had reached the bank by the time the robbers fled, but the thieves did not face any resistance while escaping.
"There are 260 lockers in the bank, of which the robbers broke three big lockers, seven medium-sized lockers and 24 small lockers," he said.
The police have included Inam and another security guard, who works at the bank in the morning shift, in the case's investigation. Meanwhile, efforts are under way to trace Inam's friend with whom the security guard had had dinner on Saturday on the basis of suspicion.
The SSP said Inam, who has been working for a security agency for the past nine years, told the police that the robbers were conversing with each other in Pashto and had donned shalwar kameez.
He added the police had collected fingerprints from the bank as evidence and footage from CCTV cameras installed in the bank's vicinity was also being retrieved.
Persons who had lockers and opened accounts in the bank visited it the morning after the heist.
A woman who had recently shifted to Pakistan said she had deposited all her life's savings in the bank. The woman claimed that neither the police, nor bank staff had given her a satisfactory answer regarding the recovery of her stolen valuables.
Another elderly citizen, who had kept jewellery and cash in a locker at the bank, said his daughter was to get married after Eid and had kept her jewellery and cash in the bank thinking that the valuables would be safer there.
He claimed robbery and snatching incidents outside the automated teller machine chamber beside the bank were frequently reported and fires had broken out in the bank twice.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th, 2021.