Five armed criminals looted the Alakhdiha branch of Kshetriya Gramin Bank which comes under Chalkusha Police Station of Barkattha block of Hazaribagh district on Monday. The criminals decamped with Rs5.42 lakh from the cashier of the bank, they also looted the customers present in the branch at that time.

After getting information SP Hazaribagh, Akhilesh Jha rushed to the spot with DSP Barhi Avinash Kumar.  On the direction of SP Jha, the Chalkusha PS team started tracing the criminals which were said to be fled towards the Bangaro forest area.  Two persons have been taken in custody on suspicion. SP and other officials were at Barkattha at the time of filing of this report.

As per the eye witnesses, at about 11.30 am, five miscreants reached in front of the bank branch on their bikes. Two of them took their position at the gate and three entered inside the branch.  Inside the branch, two criminals took the customers on gunpoint while one entered into the cash counter. At that time, only cashier Prahlad Kumar and a daily wager Dilip Ram were present in the bank.

The criminal who entered into the cash counter snatched all the cash available there on gunpoint. Meanwhile, his colleagues also snatched money from the customers.  From cash counter, they looted Rs5,42,260 and from the customers they snatched more than Rs6,000. After looting the bank, they fled on their bikes towards the Bangaro forest area. Alakhdiha branch is situated in the busy market area and in broad daylight, the criminals finished their work within 15 minutes and escaped.

The Chalkusha PS was informed about the incident which informed other police stations to nab the criminals if they pass through their area. At the time of robbery, branch manager PradeepYadav was not present.  He arrived after the arrival of higher police officials. When asked, he said that he had gone in the field to collect the loan amount. Branch Manager informed about the incident to his Hazaribagh headquarter.

Regional Manager of Kshetriya Gramin Bank, Hazaribagh, Ravishankar lal has confirmed that about Rs5.5 lakh have been looted from their Alakhdiha branch of Chalkusha, Barkattha.  The police is doing its job, meanwhile, we have ordered the branch manager to submit a detailed report of the incident, he added.