Rs 16 lakh in ATM, thieves strike at midnight. How woman manager foiled them

A late-night e-surveillance alert helped a woman bank manager foil an ATM robbery in dramatic fashion. She rushed to the booth with her husband, pulled down the shutter and saved Rs 16 lakh in cash.

In Short

• E-surveillance alert alerted Nagaur bank manager to suspicious ATM activity
• Manager and husband reached ATM, pulled down shutter and trapped robbers
• Police arrested two accused after finding them locked inside the ATM booth

A bank manager and her husband foiled an attempted ATM robbery in Rajasthan on Monday night after an e-surveillance alert alerted them to suspicious activity late at night. The quick action helped save Rs 16 lakh in cash and led to the arrest of two men, police said.

The incident took place at around 2.13 am at a UCO Bank ATM in Rajasthan’s Nagaur district. The two accused entered the ATM booth to steal cash and began damaging the machine.

As soon as the e-surveillance system detected suspicious activity, an alarm was triggered. The alert was received by Gautam Nagar, the security officer of the bank’s Ajmer region, who informed branch manager Sarita Chaudhary at around 2 am.

Chaudhary, who lives with her family in quarters above the bank, immediately rushed to the ATM booth with her husband. She found two men inside and shut the shutter from outside before calling the police, trapping the accused inside.

Police arrived at the scene, opened the shutter and arrested Bharat Prajapat, a Mundwa resident who runs a tea stall, and Komal Kumar Rajput, a Bihar native who works at Prajapat’s shop.

According to police, the duo had arrived at the ATM on a motorcycle belonging to someone else and entered the booth with equipment intended to break open the machine.

The accused had broken the ATM’s upper cover, applied grease to the CCTV camera and cut its connectivity wires. However, they could not break open the cash compartment.

The ATM contained Rs 16,00,900 in cash. The bank manager said the money had been loaded into the machine ahead of a proposed bank strike on Monday.

“Both accused were arrested from inside the ATM booth along with the equipment they had used during the attempted robbery,” Station House Officer Purbaram said.

- Ends
(With inputs from Kesha Ram)