Second Robbery At The Same Muthoot Branch Stumps Investigators

Ramachandrapuram: It was the second robbery at the same branch of Muthoot finance that has stumped police who are investigating the attention to detail paid by the miscreants in looting Rs 13 crore worth of gold from the Ramachandrapuram branch of Muthoot Finance in Sangareddy district, here on Wednesday morning.

Addressing the media, police officials pointed out to several details that indicate possible insider hand in the robbery. Five people arrived at the finance company branch at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. They were all dressed in safari suits and claimed to be CBI officials. The branch officials conduct a meeting every day at 9 a.m. for the days activities. The robbers went straight to the meeting room at the meeting time, police said and added that their arrival at that particular time is one of the angles of investigation since there were no customers at that time meaning no witnesses. Secondly, they spoke in a confident and "police-like" manner and demanded to see the branch lockers as they had information that unaccounted gold was deposited, said an employee. On being refused to open the lockers, all the employees in the meeting room were threatened with firearms. Finally, when they filled their bags with the gold from the lockers they promptly took away the hard disk that stores the CCTV footage.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner Sandeep Sandilya, who rushed to the spot said that a similar dacoity had taken place in the same branch and the case is still under investigation. He said the staff told the police that 42 kg gold was lost in the second dacoity that took place on Wednesday.

The robbers completed their job in less than 15 minutes and left the place after locking the employees in a bathroom, but none of them raised alarm, a police official said. Police have formed special teams and also alerted police of neighbouring districts and States regarding the heist.

Meanwhile, the police also released the descriptive particulars of the robbers and said four of the five robers were aged between 35 to 40 years.

Police suspect that all the five headed towards Gulbarga in neighbouring Karnataka. The number of the Scorpio vehicle, AP28N3107, was said to be that of a two-wheeler, police said. No arrests were made in the case .