Despite the recent police clampdown on the ATMs running in a certain part of the city sans security guards, many ATMs spread across the city are still being found operating without guards.
Notably, police had instructed the banks to install CCTV cameras and appoint security guards at all the ATMs operating in the city while acting on the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines.
While roaming around the bustling Karanpur, Raipur and Dharampur areas of the city on Monday, this correspondent found that the ATMs run by State Bank of India and Central Bank of India aside from some private banks have been left to the mercy of the fraudsters with no guard posted to take care of their security. At some of them, the doors are not closed, something which the persons came to withdraw money dub as an open invitation to the criminals to rob them. Intriguingly enough, apparently infirm persons close on 70s were found guarding some of the ATMs. At others, students in their early teens were found guarding the ATMs left under their charges while they were seriously preparing for competitive examinations.
At an ATM of a private bank located in Sahastradhara, this correspondent found out that a teen age boy, a student of a school, was substituting his uncle, who had gone somewhere, to guard the money vending machine.
Asked whether he was attentive to the task he was given by his uncle, he smiled a disarming smile and said innocently, "Yes. But I have homework to do."