Bhubaneswar: The Commissionerate Police here have busted an inter-state robbery gang with the arrest of two more accused in the January 24 Sriram Nagar ATM loot case at Sriram Nagar under Lingaraj station police limits in Bhubaneswar.
With this, the total number of arrests in the case has gone up to 8.
“Six persons were earlier arrested and forwarded to court. We have apprehended two more inter-state criminals and serial offenders in connection with the ATM loot incident,” Commissioner of Police (CP) S Dev Datta Singh told a presser on Tuesday.
He said that Abdul Haq alias Rustam (36) was apprehended from UP’s Ghaziabad and Sheikh Mijanur Rehman Mulla alias Raju (45) nabbed from West Bengal. “Rustam and Mulla are the main masterminds. Mulla carried out a similar theft in an ATM under the Dhauli police limits in 2022. He was then arrested. After his release on bail, he planned and executed the Sriram Nagar ATM theft with the help of his associates, including some locals,” he said.
Singh further informed that Rustam had recently walked out of Goa jail, where he was lodged for an ATM theft case.
Police have seized Rs 38,000 in cash and mobile phones from their possession, he added.
The CP said that banks should heed to their advice to install IP-enabled cameras and share it with the police control room to prevent such crimes.
On March 1, police made a breakthrough in the loot incident with the arrest of six persons from Vedavyas, Rourkela, on the basis of CCTV footage. Two bikes, cash worth Rs 1.60 lakh, two crowbars and hammers, the damaged ATM, some stolen goods and six mobile phones were seized from their possession.
The gang had uprooted an ATM of a nationalised bank from Sriram Nagar on January 24 night and transported it in a stolen auto rickshaw to a river bank. They breached the ATM using a gas cutter. While the accused had looted cash worth Rs 21.77 lakh, the cost of the ATM machine was also approximately Rs 1.70 lakh.