Amritsar, April 30
Poor quality of the CCTV camera footage, procured from Axis Bank to probe into the sensational robbery attempt a couple of days ago, has left the police clueless about two culprits.

Ghanshayam, an employee of a private security agency, was shot dead by two unidentified assailants during a robbery bid on the Axis Bank premises on Thursday.

Though the footage showed movements of the accused, it did not help the police identify them. This incident has brought out the careless attitude of several banks, which have installed inferior quality of CCTV cameras just to escape police action.

Facing severe criticism from the public for falling law and order situation in the city, the police made a point to bring out the flawed practices, followed by the banks and security companies. Deputy Commissioner of Police Amar Singh Chahal along with ADCP (Crime) Inderbir Singh held an emergency security meeting with bank officials to take stock of the situation today.

The meeting cleared the picture that majority of the banks had not installed CCTV cameras outside their premises and several others have put up inferior quality cameras that hardly cover a distance of few feet.

“We are going to take up this issue with the higher authorities of the banks and will ask them to install CCTV cameras with specific standards. The close circuit cameras must cover a distance of 50-60 metres,” said Chahal.

The footage also pointed a finger at the private security companies, who ‘negligently’ handle cash movements to banks and from banks to other places like ATMs.

The footage revealed that guard of the private security company moved inside the bank much before the man carrying the cash alighted from the vehicle.

While going inside and coming outside the bank, the cashier was all alone which gave ample chance to looters for committing the crime. The guard, after hearing the gunshots, ran inside the bank instead of coming to the help of the victim, revealed the footage that was shown to a selected media.

“We will definitely cancel the license of private security companies indulging in such negligent act,” said the DCP.

Several representatives of banks at the meeting expressed their inability to convince their higher ups to expedite the requisite formalities in installing the cameras. They pointed out that the installation of cameras gets delayed due to the procedural formalities. But they assured to install CCTV cameras soon.

Tarn Taran, April 30
Food stock worth more than Rs 3 crore was allegedly embezzled from two Markfed godowns situated at the border township of Patti.

The Valtoha police has booked four Markfed officials — a branch manager and three others — and registered two separate cases in this regard.

Though the embezzlement came to light when Markfed district manager Kanwaljit Singh inspected the godowns last year, cases were registered on Friday on the basis of the inquiry report filed by Kanwaljit recently.

SSP Preetpaul Singh Virk said the cases were registered under Sections 406, 408, 409 and 120B of the IPC on the basis of the report of the District Manager.

Those booked are Jasbir Singh, senior branch Manager, Markfed, Patti, and Kashmir Singh, a salesman, Vijay Kumar, a storekeeper, and Sukhwinder Singh, SBO, who has expired.

According to the Kanwaljit’s report, Jasbir Singh and Kashmir Singh embezzled wheat stock worth Rs 1.58 crore from godown no 1 while Vijay Kumar and Sukhwinder Singh embezzled stock of wheat, paddy and other materials worth Rs. 1.59 crore from the second godown at Chuslewar village (Patti).