Busting an ATM breaking gang, the industrial police here have arrested two persons, who were involved in at least 10 ATM robbery cases in Baleswar district.
The accused were identified as Deepak Kumar Behera (19), a resident of Chheliapada under the Sadar police station, and Ajay Kumar Ghadei (30), a resident of Rasalpur under the Sadar police limits. Industrial police station IIC Paresh Rout said the duo was involved in as many as 10 ATM breaking and robbing cases involving cash worth about Rs 2.72 lakh. Besides recovering cash of Rs 76,300 from their possession, the police also seized a motorbike used by them for committing crimes. They were apprehended when they were under police surveillance after breaking an ATM and looting cash from it at Remuna Golai.
Rout said that on Wednesday night, the duo, after breaking the ATM and looting cash of Rs 15,600 from the machine, was preparing to flee; and when they saw a police patrolling van, they fled abandoning their bike. However, the criminals were keeping a watch on the bike. On Thursday, when they came to take back the bike, alerted police pounced on them and nabbed them.
The police officer said, “Many a time, for different reasons including link failure the ATMs don’t dispense the entered amount. The amount goes to a bin in the ATM. These culprits used to break those bins and loot the amount.
They have learnt the breaking of bin from YouTube. They were earlier arrested by the Tamil Nadu police for a similar offence.” “Following receipt of compliant, the images of the culprits were found from the CCTV footages and their photographs matched and they were identified,” he said.
The duo had earlier committed ATM loot at Gopalpur, Rasalpur, Khantapara, Sunhat, Haldipada and Simulia in the district. In some cases, they had made abortive attempts.