Rs8.2m Stolen As Armed Robbers Raid Bank For The Fifth Time This Year
Wednesday, April 6th, 2016 8:50:53 by modousarr
On Tuesday, five armed men invaded a private Bank branch in Korangi and swooped over Rs8.2m. Officials say this is the fifth bank robbery this year.
Reports say that five armed men pulled up in motorbikes and within seven to eight minutes, ,managed to storm into a Meezan bank branch by disarming the security guy assigned at the entrance and leaving two of them to guard the entranced as three of them marched into the bank.
The area DSP Ghulam NabiWahgo related “As two of them stayed outside, the three robbers held the staff and a few customers at gunpoint, they collected cash from counters but strangely enough they did not take away the DVR [digital video recorder] with them.”
According to him, Investigations are in order, the bank staff, the two security guards and witnesses are being questioned “We have seized the CCTV footage and it would be very helpful in recognizing the faces of the bandits.”
According to statistics, armed bank robberies like this are quite the norm. 15 bank holdups happened last year which is an improvement considering the 24 banks heists which took place in 2014, 28 in 2013; 23 in 2012 and about 19 in in 2010. The improvement is said to be the result of the efforts police officials and the un-ending Rangers-led operations in the city.
Police authorities questioned the efficacy of private security officials, saying that they usually never try to confront robbers. They also disclosed that security guards in some cases have covertly assisted robbers in implementing their aims.
Managements of private banks have been accused of being partly responsible for the success of these robbers by not investing adequately to ensure optimum security.
An agent from the Special Investigation Unit (SIU), SSP Farooq Awan said, “In this robbery no SOP [standard operating procedure] for security was followed.” “There was no bunker inside the branch for bank guards. Such bunkers are meant to provide a secure place for the guards so that in case of such threats they could resist or challenge the robbers from a better position.” He added.
SSp Anwan informed us that all 15 cases were solved last year, saying, “Same is the trend this year as we have solved all the previous four cases. However, we need to understand that we can only prevent such incidents through joint efforts but unfortunately banks and financial institutions are least bothered about the security of their own establishments, which encourages robbers to make attempts after every few months.”
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