Burglars drilled a two-foot hole in the wall of the strong room of Punjab National Bank’s Modinagar branch, got in through the opening they had made, and emptied out 30 locker, that has items worth crores.
The branch is located on NH-58 and is adjacent to an L-shaped plot on which sits an abandoned rubber factory. On this plot, an empty office is right behind where the bank’s strong room is, sharing a common wall.
The burglars entered this office and cut the hole in the common wall, which is about nine inches thick, at a height just above where the lockers end.
The burglary was discovered around 9:45 am on Monday when a bank staffer, Anil Bhargav, and the head cashier, Ajay Kumar, opened the strong room which has two security doors.
The steel door of the strong room can be opened with a set of two keys, kept in the custody of these officials, only when they are inserted together into the keyholes.
“After opening the steel door, the officials were about to open the next door which is an iron grille like those found in prisons. However, they noticed through the grill that things had been scattered inside the strong room. They also noticed that several lockers seemed to have been broken. They immediately called up the police control room,” assistant general manager S K Pancholi said.
Bank officials said there has been no security guard at the bank. “The strong room had been closed on Friday around 6 pm. The bank was closed for two days after that. A security alarm is also installed inside the strong room apart from a CCTV camera. Even if the alarm went off, there was no one to hear it since the bank was closed. There was no security guard at the branch. The branch depended on police patrol vehicles for security,” added Pancholi.
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