With migrants suspected to be behind the recent twin burglaries, the police are zeroing in on migrant labour camps in Kottayam and Thrissur districts to check whether workers had gone missing immediately prior to the robberies.
The police have zeroed in on eight or nine such migrant workers who had gone missing from a migrant camp in Thrissur district. Efforts are on to figure out whether any of them were involved in the burglaries, J. Himendranath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Kochi City, told The Hindu .
Meanwhile, a Special Investigation Team headed by the District Police Chief (Kochi city), comprising police chiefs of Kottayam and Thrissur Rural, DCP, Kochi City, and DySPs concerned from the three districts as members, has been constituted to probe the robberies.
The team has also drafted in police officials who had associated with the investigation into a similar case reported last year and had gone to Haryana and Delhi in that connection.
The police have passed on the visuals of suspects to the State Crime Records Bureau, which would forward them to the National Crime Records Bureau for potential matches with criminals listed in their data base. Visuals from the last year’s case are also being compared with the current visuals to figure out whether there were any similarities.
The police suspect a gang of migrants to be behind the ATM robberies in Ernakulam and Thrissur districts and failed attempts in Kottayam district. The gang broke into an outsourced ATM of State Bank of India at Irumpanam using a gas cutter and looted ₹25 lakh at 3.33 a.m. on Friday, and one-and-a-half hour later ₹10 lakh from an ATM in Koratty.
The investigation team later traced the vehicle, which was suspected to be used by the gang, near the railway station at Chalakudy triggering suspicions that they might have fled the State.
