Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 27: A group of six to seven burglars decamped with an ATM of Punjab National Bank (PNB) at Nanak Nagar in early hours of this morning. The ATM contained Rs 4.01 lakh worth cash but preliminary investigations by the police revealed that the burglars hadn’t been able to break it.
Police have recovered hard disk, transformer and some other accessories of the transformer from a pond at Sarore near Bari Brahmana. Police have also managed to gather some vital clues about the burglars and was confident of cracking the case.
Police said the burglars appeared to have struck at the ATM of PNB at Nanak Nagar between 2 am to 2.15 am. They first broke the Close Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) and then decamped with entire ATM reportedly in a Mahindra load carrier.
At least six to seven persons were involved in the burglary, which was detected in early hours of this morning.
Police parties led by SHO Gandhi Nagar Inspector Rajinder Sharma immediately rushed to the spot. Police called Forensic experts and sniffer dogs to the spot. Senior police officers including SSP Jammu Atul Goel also visited the spot for on spot examination of the burglary.
The PNB officials, who reached the site, said the ATM contained Rs 4,01,700.
Police later recovered hard disk, transformer, typing unit and some other accessories of the ATM from a pond at Sarore near Bari Brahmana. Despite being wet, the cyber experts of police were trying to extract data from hard disk of the ATM.
Police said the recovery of the hard disk from Sarore and some other clues indicated movement of the burglars around Bishnah. They added that massive searches were being conducted at various places to nab the accused and a breakthrough was expected to be made shortly.
They said it was virtually impossible for the burglars to remove cash from the ATM in view of certain fool-proof measures taken by the banks to protect cash. The burglars had to melt the ATM to extract the cash but, in the process, there was danger of the currency notes getting melted.
The burglars would be unable to get matching keys and code to open the ATM to get the cash.
Some CCTVs on the National Highway have also given clues to police about movement of Mahindra load carrier in which the ATM was stolen.
Police said they have got enough clues during day long investigations of the case and there was a possibility that they would be able to get a breakthrough in a short span of time.
The ATM was unmanned, they added.
Worthwhile to mention here that the burglars had made a similar attempt to lift an ATM in the load carrier at SIDCO complex in Samba on the intervening night of December 25 and 26 but had failed due to alarm raised by the guard.
Follow our WhatsApp channel