Lakhs of rupees looted from 2 SBI ATMs near Baddi

Solan, August 9

Cash worth lakhs of rupees was looted from two ATMs of State Bank of India (SBI) at Bagvania village on Baddi-Nalagarh highway by unidentified miscreants in the wee hours on Friday morning.

The two machines were installed in the same cabin and the entire loot was executed within 14 minutes.

As per the close circuit camera details probed by the police, five masked youth came in a Maruti Ecko car around 3:10 am equipped with gas cutters and they broke open the ATMs to loot the cash.

Though a burglar alarm was sounded in the SBI’s Mumbai office and its information was immediately conveyed to the Baddi police but the miscreants fled before the arrival of the police around 3: 30 am, DSP Baddi Khajan Ram said.

A police patrol had checked the area at 2.39 am when everything was found normal.

Khajan informed that the exact amount of money looted from the machines was yet to be ascertained though an amount of Rs 18 lakh was inserted into it on Thursday.

Two special investigation teams led by SHOs Rakesh Roy and Sham Lal have been constituted to probe various aspects of the case. Preliminary probe revealed that the vehicle used in the crime was a stolen vehicle.

The youth fled towards Nalagarh after committing the crime.

This industrial belt is highly vulnerable to such loots as several cases have occurred in the past where the involvement of inter-state gangs has been found.

Since the area shares a porous border with Punjab and Haryana, the probability of the youth having slipped into these states can’t be ruled out.