An unidentified gang made a futile attempt to burgle a nationalised bank at Sedapatti. The crime came to light on Monday when the employees returned for duty after the bank was locked on Friday evening.
Police said that the culprits had gained entry into Canara bank branch by cutting three iron rods in a window of a bathroom in the rear side of the building located on the Usilampatti-Peraiyur Road. The burglars had succeeded in breaking open the grille gate outside the chest, but could not open the safe. The anti-burglary alarm, installed with a motion sensor, had failed to raise an alarm, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Peraiyur) K.S. Ravichandran said. “It should have gone off immediately after the culprits tampered with its connection,” he said.
Similarly, the closed circuit television camera had stopped functioning from September 25. After realising that they could not succeed in breaking open the safe, the gang members had exited through the same window. The culprits who had carried a bag full of one rupee coins up to the bathroom had left it there, the police said. A sniffer dog was pressed into service and forensic experts lifted fingerprints from the scene of crime.
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This is the fourth burglary attempt made at this bank, the police said. The previous attempts were made in 1995, 1999 and 2008. The police wondered how the bank officials had ignored those burglary attempts and failed to deploy a security guard at the branch.
It may be recalled that a masked man robbed Rs.10.60 lakh from the Kulamangalam branch of Corporation Bank near Mahatma Gandhi Nagar in Madurai on October 21. The police had registered a case of negligence against the Corporation bank officials for not installing CCTV cameras despite a directive issued to all banks. Based on a complaint filed by Canara Bank Manager C. Swaminathan (56), the Sedapatti police are investigating.