Parmesh S Jain
In a swift action the Southeast division police cracked the bank robbery case and arrested a 28-year-old mechanical engineer who barged into the SBI Madiwala branch threatened the staff at knife point and made away with 1.8 kgs of gold valuables and Rs 3.7 lakh cash on January 14.
The accused has been identified as,Dhiraj S,29.
Senior officer told reporters,A special team led by ACP,Madivala sub division,Sudhir M Hegde and his special squad swung into action the team visited the bank to collect stock of the situation from the eyewitness as bank employee.
ACP,Sudhir M Hegde consisted of 3 special teams analysed the CCTV footage of the bank and surround and in one of the CCTV footage the team identified the accused from the CCTV footage and track him down at Yelahanka within four days of the incident,when the accused had come to repay the money to his friend.
During investigation the accused was identified as Dhiraj S,resident of Kamakshipalya and living with his father and younger brother is a mechanical engineer by profession and working for a private company in Indira Nagar.
Investigations revealed that Dhiraj had invested lakhs of rupees in online trading,cheated and incurred huge loss,he borrowed heavy loans from private banks and friends and had even pawned the gold valuables belonging to his late mother .
When the banks and friends demanded for repayment,Dhiraj hatched a plan to rob a bank.
He read articles by searching in google and read news papers about bank robbery and even goggled and watched you tube to learn the trick of the trade.
He even receed many banks without security before zeroing in on Madivala branch after watching the bank for two days.
As per the plan on the day of Sankranti festival (Jan 14),the accused wearing mask and armed with knife gained entry into the bank at around 6 pm and threatened the in charge manager and the staff forcing them to fill the valuables in a bag and escaped .
As per the plan the accused walked for three kilometres before boarding Autorickshaw to go to Banashankari bus stand.
From there he boarded a bus to Majestic and took the bus to Chikkamagaluru to move on to Tarikere,Tumakuru,Ananthpur and returned to Bengaluru.
He started repaying loan to the banks and to his friends and even got the pawned jewels of his mother from a gold company.
Meanwhile the police team led by Mr.Hegde,got a picture of the accused and a suspicion number from a nearest mobile tower.
With the help of the number the police team went to his house and found his pictures which matched with the photograph obtained by the police.
The police gathered all the detailed of Dhiraj and his friends who confirmed that Dhiraj had visited them to pay the loan.
The police team got the list of the friends whom Dhiraj had to repay and waited at the friend’s house in Yelahanka and caught Dhiraj when he had come to pay the rent.
The special team grilled the accused and based on his statement the team recovered 1.8 kilograms of gold,Cash Rs 6.5 lakh,a backpack, a knife and a mobile phone total worth Rs 85 lakh from him.
A detailed investigation by the team it was also found lapses on part of the banks in terms of security cover.
The bank should have a proper alarm system which could be activated and nearest police station or control room in case of any eventuality, a police officer said.
The bank did not have any proper security cover nor the staff members have any basic training given on how to handle such situations.
The team is collecting more information from the accused and further investigation is on.
Finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,Kamal Pant has appreciated Addl CP East, Subramanyeswara Rao,DCP Southeast Srinath Mahadev Joshi ACP,Sudhir M Hegde and his whole team who has cracked the case in 4 days and nabbed the notorious offender and for the exemplary and excellent investigation done by the team a suitable reward will be given to the team he added.
