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investigation
Gohana’s great bank robbery
The fine handiwork of the accused in the Gohana bank heist amazed all. No skilled engineers or wanted criminals these, just a bunch of village youths wanting to make a quick buck. The Tribune retraces the tunnel steps.
By Geetanjali Gayatri
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It
had all the trappings of a thriller to make a box-office hit—a near-perfect bank heist pulled off by five very ordinary men, with no technical expertise and no money to invest in a burglary as big as it got in Gohana. They crawled out of the 84-ft tunnel with jewellery worth crores, cash stuffed in pockets, to freedom and a new life. But, like there’s no perfect murder, there is no perfect heist and the Gohana theft substantiates this.The now-dead main accused Mahipal, Rajesh, Balraj, Surender and Satish thought they had changed their destiny when, on the intervening night of October 26 and 27, they distributed the booty and faded into obscurity well before the sun rose and the bank opened to discover the “break-in”. It was over to the police now while they watched the fun from the sidelines.
Gohana’s eight
 1
Mahipal (52): He was the mastermind behind the heist and has a son and three daughters. He is under matriculate and tried several businesses, including plying taxis and running a motel before settling for property dealing. Essentially dealing in “disputed property”, the abandoned house from where the tunnel started was also one such purchase.his role:
Under heavy debt, he got the idea six months ago and he got all the
“players” together. status: Dead, allegedly committed suicide.
 2
Satish (35):
Mahipal’s matriculate friend and “business partner” in property dealing, he is unmarried and staying with his mother at Katwal village. He got his three sisters married and had recently sold his ancestral land.his role: At Mahipal’s instance, he had tapped his friends at Katwal village to help out with the “quick-money operation”. status:
Arrested
 3
Balraj (35):
He used to help his father in farming their land at Katwal village. He has an unmarried younger brother.his role: An acquaintance of Satish, he, too, helped in digging the tunnel and decamped with his share of the booty. status:
Arrested
 4
Surender (25):
A father of two, Surender was staying with his parents and wife at Katwal village. He used to run a laboratory outside BPS Government Women Medical College. Landless, he was hard-pressed for money. He belonged to a family of carpenters.his role: He is learnt to have provided vital inputs in keeping the tunnel from caving in and based it on the theory that village mud houses are built on. status:
Arrested
5 Rajesh (34):
Having lost his father, Rajesh was staying with his mother at Katwal village. He had sold his agricultural land for the construction of a house, and is unmarried. A case under the NDPS Act was registered against him in Himachal Pradesh in the year 2009. Also, a case under Section 120-B was registered against him at the Gohana Sadar police station in 2011.his role: Satish’s friend, he joined the gang and laboured to dig the tunnel. status:
Absconding The three co-accused: Gohana resident Arvind had taken Rs 5,000 from the accused to help them in the digging work for two days; Qutubgarh (New Delhi) resident Rohit had sold the accused a SIM card; and Delhi resident Aman, owner of the shop from where the accused had purchased the SIM card. — Inputs from BS Malik |
The only witness to the break-in was the tunnel, dug from a room inside an abandoned “disputed” building belonging to Mahipal that opened up into the strongroom. There were also open lockers, some with locks still dangling, which had been wiped clean. But tunnels and lockers can’t talk. Bank officials were stunned, locker owners livid, and the police was at sea. Seventy-six lockers stared the police in its face. That’s when SP Arun Singh Nehra called for the house owner. Mahipal, a property dealer, made his first appearance on the scene and feigned ignorance. What did him in, in the eyes of the police, at the very onset of the investigation was that he claimed he hadn’t visited the house in a long time.
It sounded incredible to the police especially since Diwali had just been celebrated and he lived a stone’s throw away from the house in question. “In Hindu tradition, on Diwali night, we generally light up all dark corners. It seemed unbelievable that a man staying a few metres away had not come to light up his property. We nailed him as a suspect from the word ‘go’ and put him under surveillance,” Nehra says.
As the investigation picked pace and the police worked on different theories, including thieves dug the tunnel by placing a GPS in one of the lockers to facilitate direction, on October 28, Haryana DGP SN Vashistha announced Rs 10-lakh award for any information.
The police formed seven teams to carry out investigations while zeroing in on 20-odd big villages and seeking reports of groups of youth “missing” for the last few days from the village. Katwal “reported” one such group of youths who had been “missing”.
However, the breakthrough came from tiny bits of vital information the police pieced together from “secret information” and arrested Balraj and Surender from Katwal the very next morning. A panicky Satish, sources claim, called up Mahipal to know the “developments in police investigation” and the police got its third crucial man from an outer colony of Gohana, late in the evening of October 30.
Mahipal, called in for interrogation by the police on October 30, was found dead the same evening, hours after he walked out of the police station. He drove away and informed his family that he had been found innocent and was proceeding in connection with some work. Though the police believe that nabbing Satish could have prompted Mahipal to commit suicide, he was found dead in his car parked on the Panipat road. His family disputes this and maintains there is more to it.
The police is also on the trail of Rajesh, a key link in the heist. “The case was cracked using a combination of inputs from sources and technology. Divulging more would compromise on investigation and alert criminals,” says Nehra.
While Rajesh is still on the run, the police has recovered 45.050 kg of gold and silver jewellery and Rs 2.65 lakh cash. While no recovery has so far been made from Mahipal’s family given his death, the interrogation of those arrested has revealed that as per agreement the booty was distributed among the four accused. Mahipal asked them to get the ornaments back later for melting into bars that could be sold in the market.
Like any movie, this story, too, has its share of key players—the villains and the victim. There was a plan and the regular loopholes the villian uses to his advantage.
Compensate or pack up, say victims
Locker owners are seeking compensation from the bank authorities, claiming they were lax. |
The owners of lockers number 181 to 268 are seeking justice. Having forced its closure, they are sitting on dharna outside the bank building, demanding compensation. “This heist could not have happened without insider involvement. Employees of the bank are definitely involved because the tunnel opened up with such precision before the lockers. They can all be involved and they can let off all the accused for all we care. We want our money and jewellery back,” says D Narwal, a protester, putting the total loss to Rs 14 crore. Maintaining that they will meet Chief Minister Manohar Lal and ask for a CBI inquiry, agitated locker owners say unless the bank compensates them, they will ensure that the bank is forced to pack up and leave the state. Bank, too, villain of the piece The script, if people are to be believed, has two categories of villains—the good-for-nothing accused wanting to make big money and the bank which failed to protect the interest of its customers. Satisfied with the arrests of the accused and the recovery over the last week, the victims believe they will get their due from the court as the investigation progresses. However, they are sore with the bank, housed in the building since 1983. The lockers were even older. “The bank did not follow the procedure of reinforcing the flooring of the strongroom with mental sheets and a thicker layer of concrete. It is not even assuring any compensation. The lockers were worn out and so opened easily. The accused had tried to open other lockers too, but failed. They carried out a recee on a daily basis and knew everything. They dug a tunnel right below and the employees got to know nothing? They are the real villains of this plot,” he accuses. ‘They’ve brought us shame’ Katwal village is hoping the world will forget its newly-found “claim to fame” and let it go back to its oblivious existence soon. Made infamous by the four village accused, the village can’t shrug off its “acquired” reputation. “Katwal became world-famous overnight. The entire village seems to have become suspect in the public eye after the case was cracked. The media has been all over the place for the misdeeds of a few elements. We are ashamed but we don’t know how to distance ourselves from the shame,” says Shanu, an elderly woman. It was the fateful night of October 30 when the police came knocking in the village and circled it. Dinner was long over and unsuspecting villagers had bolted their homes and called it a day. They were glued to their television sets when the roar of four-wheelers sliced through the silence of the night and brought them outdoors. “I was watching television when a neighbour’s frantic knocking forced me out of bed. I opened the door and saw the police all over the street in their vehicles. The police stayed through the night and left only in the wee hours with the accused in its custody,” says 65-year-old Bulo, insisting this is the first-ever police crackdown at Katwal. If the daring heist dominated all discussions initially, the accused and their village link has taken over conversations at the pond where women wash clothes and among men, over numerous rounds of hookah and cards. “They must have been tempted by the lure of quick money. Once the accused had invited a taxi driver from our village for a party, got him drunk, took his money and dumped him in slush,” says a villager on the condition of anonymity. Since then, the story has been discussed in hushed tones for fear of embarrassing the families of the accused. Some villagers expressed “condolences” to the families. “They can’t be held responsible for the misdeeds of the accused. We have visited their houses and assured them of being there in their hour of crisis. That, however, does not take away the ignominy that’ll stay with us for a long time,” villagers claim in unison as they smoke hookah. They are right. It’s a story that will not be forgotten in a hurry in this village with the strongest link to the heist.
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