The district police on Monday cracked the sensational bank robbery case that took place in Ankapalle town on November 6 with the arrest of three three of the four accused. They also recovered 1.84 kg of gold ornament.
The arrested have been identified as Suresh Kasirao Umak alias Sagar Deshmukh (54) resident of Kamlapur village, Amravati district, Maharashtra, Gangadhar Guad (35) alias Sadasiva of Raichur district, Karnataka, and Sagar Arun Rao Take of Amravati, Maharashtra. Another accused Biswas Gulab Singan of Amarvati is still at large. Robbers broke into the premises of AP Grameena Vikas Bank (APGVB) in the wee hours of November 6 and made good with about 3.175 kgs of gold by cutting open the lockers.
Modus operandi
Describing the modus operandi of the robbers, Superintendent of police Rahul Dev Sharma said the robbers, who became friends in a jail, assembled at Rayagada in Odisha, prior to the robbery and hired a vehicle and drove down to Anakapalle. They identified the APGVB bank as it was located close to the NH.
They went to Rajahmundry to buy an oxygen cylinder after getting gas cutting and other tools from a shop at Anakapalle.
They cut open the grills of a window in the rear portion of the bank after midnight on November 5, but failed in their first attempt, as they ran out of oxygen. Leaving all tools on the premises they again went to Rajahmundry to replenish the oxygen cylinder and returned again on October 6 night, said Mr. Rahul Dev Sharma.
They chose the dates, as they were Saturday and Sunday and they were aware that the bank remains closed on both the days, he added.
According to DSP of Central Crime Station, Elia Sagar, the entire operation took about 3 hours and they left the premises by 3.30 a.m.
In the process of cutting about 500 gms of gold got melted.
The bank heist was a well planned one but the police proved to be smarter.
The only clue left behind was the finger print of one of the accused and the investigating team took a lead from that. “Gone are the days when the study and matching of finger prints would take weeks and months. We now have a centralised system and a software at the CID where we can get the prints matched with the database within a couple of hours. We transmitted the prints and it tallied with Gangadhar who was caught in an offence in 2008,” said Mr. Rahul Dev Sharma.
Gangadhar was nabbed while we was trying to sell the gold at a jewellers shop in One Town area in the city and he spilled the beans and the other two were nabbed, who were waiting close by.
Main accused Suresh Kasirao had committed five similar bank robberies in Maharashtra and all the banks were located close to NH and were grameena banks.
