Director-General of Police C. Sylendra Babu has announced a ₹1 lakh reward to any police personnel intercepting the robbers who took away 32 kg gold from the Fedbank, Arumbakkam, here on Saturday.
Asking police officers across the State to bring every officer to the road and check vehicles, the DGP said that anyone intercepting the motorcycle-borne robbers would be given a cash reward of ₹1 lakh, the police sources said.
Even as the police formed special teams to follow specific clues to track down the suspects who sped away with the booty on motorcycles and are conducting storming operations in possible hideouts, a high alert has been sounded in the northern districts, particularly Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu, the sources said.
Alert sounded
Soon after the robbery was reported, instructions were given to Superintendents of Police in the North Zone and Central Zone of Tamil Nadu police to strengthen manpower at inter-district border check posts and toll plazas. Local police were told to look for the suspects whose description was shared in buses and trains.
“We will soon be getting the images of the suspects captured in CCTV cameras installed in the vicinity of the scene of crime. Many teams have gone in search of the accused persons and enquiries were on with their family members or close associates on their whereabouts. Since the prime suspect has been identified, a breakthrough can be expected very soon,” a senior police official told The Hindu.
Call records
Technical teams were trying to peruse the calls made/received in the mobile phone towers of the scene of crime and analyse suspicious mobile phone numbers that were active in the locality, the sources added.
Chennai witnessed two sensational bank robberies in 2012 when a gang robbed about ₹33 lakh from two nationalised banks in January and February, 2012. Five suspects allegedly involved in the two robberies were shot dead by the police in an encounter at Velachery on February 23, 2012.
