Superintendent of Police, Guntur Urban, S. Syamsundar, said on Tuesday that the mystery behind the disappearance of gold ornaments kept in a bank locker on Friday had been cracked and traced the theft to a mechanic who was on a routine job of fixing another locker in Andhra Bank branch at Koretipadu.
Enquiries revealed that the complainant Avuthu Saritha Latha had not locked the chest properly after she had kept some ornaments one month ago. All the stolen ornaments worth Rs.16 lakh had been recovered due to swift police action.
The cops nailed the accused, Mohammad Shajahad Ali (50), with the help of CC TV footage. Deputy General Manager of Andhra Bank, Venkateswarulu, who was present at the press meet on Tuesday, said that the incident was ``one in a trillion.''.
The complainant said she had placed gold ornaments in her locker at the bank on October 1. When she came on Friday to open the locker, she was shocked to find the locker opened with the entire chest of ornaments missing.
When she reported the matter to bank authorities, they latter were puzzled since the locker could be operated only by two keys, one kept with the customer and the other bank manager.
The police who swung into action examined the CC TV footage and nabbed the mechanic who admitted to the crime . He told the police that while he had come to repair another locker on October 3, he had found that another locker was open and admitted that he took the ornaments and kept in his repair kit case and left the bank. He hid the ornaments at his house in Navuluru.The S.P complimented the work done by DSP, East T.V Naga Raju, Station House Inspector, Arundelpet, B. Seetharamaiah and other police personnel in cracking the case.The Andhra Bank DGM urged customers to take care to check the locker before they leave the bank.
