TN police book cases against Kerala ATM heist suspects, recover Rs 67 lakh

PTI, Sep 28, 2024, 5:22 PM IST

The Veppadai police in Namakkal district on Saturday registered cases including attempt to murder, and criminal conspiracy, against six suspects of the brazen ATM heist in Kerala’s Thrissur district, and recovered Rs 67 lakh cash from them, a senior police official said.

Each of them had a role to play in the heist at the Kerala ATMs and they had assembled in Chennai before proceeding to Thrissur to commit the offence, he said.

The gang, which made off with approximately Rs 70 lakh from three SBI ATMs, was nabbed after a dramatic chase in Kumarapalayam in the district on Friday through well-coordinated efforts of the Namakkal police following an alert issued by their counterparts in Kerala.

The chase ended with the gunning down of one suspect and the detention of six others.

“They arrived in Chennai as three separate teams from Haryana. While two took a flight to Chennai from Delhi, three came in a car and two others came by the container truck. They all assembled in Chennai and proceeded by road to Thrissur to rob the ATMs,” Namakkal district superintendent of police S Rajesh Kannan said.

“We have recovered Rs 67 lakh cash and seized their vehicles and a sickle,” Kannan told reporters here.

After locating the ATMs of a particular bank branch on Google map, they would identify vulnerable ATMs on the highway to rob, he said.

Some of them had criminal cases pending against them and a couple of them had served a jail term in Maharashtra, the SP added.

The police had registered cases under seven sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha including criminal conspiracy, causing danger to public, preventing public servant from discharging duty, attempt to murder and TN Property Damage Act, the senior official said.

One of the six persons detained by the police is undergoing treatment at the Coimbatore government hospital for injuries he sustained when the police opened fire in self-defence after he attacked. The seventh person in the gang, the container truck driver, was gunned down by the police when he assaulted a police official and attempted to flee.

“Preliminary enquiries reveal that the gang has been involved in inter-state robberies at several ATMs and the Haryana police have been informed about their detention and shoot out as they all hailed from that state,” another police official said.

The police official said all formalities would be completed before producing the suspects in court. They would be remanded for the heist in Krishnagiri.

Meanwhile, videos of the grisly incident of the truck flinging a two-wheeler rider after knocking his vehicle down and dragging a car, with the police in hot pursuit went viral on the social media. The two-wheeler rider, however, escaped by a whisker when he immediately got up from the road, on time to evade the container’s wheels.

The speeding vehicle whizzed past, dragging a car for some distance, much to the shock of the road users. A few passers-by can be seen chasing the vehicle along with the police in the video. At a juncture, the public hurled stones at the truck in a frantic bid to stop it.