GURUGRAM:Daily operations at a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in Narsinghpur ground to a halt on Tuesday after a man stole an intranet router mistaking it for the digital video recorder of a CCTV camera early Tuesday, said bank officials on Wednesday.
The suspect allegedly broke into the bank at 3.25am on Tuesday and searched for money for one-and-a-half hours, but to no avail, said police after scanning the CCTV footage.
The man was yet to be identified, police said.
Branch chief manager Parveen Kumar Beniwal said, “The thief mistook the router for the digital video recorder of CCTV cameras. Due to this, we had to shut the bank on Tuesday because no routine work could be done that day.”
The Narsinghpur branch employs 25 staffers and handles over 15, 000 savings bank accounts with an overall deposit of at least ₹700 crore. All transactions are operated through the server.
Bank officials said the suspect — whose head and torso were wrapped in what appeared to be a thick blanket — armed with a pair of pliers, a hexa blade (which police recovered from the spot) and a torch, first jumped the peripheral wall of the office building to gain access to a window on the ground floor, and then cut the iron grille to enter inside. The suspect tried to break the iron safe inside the bank with the pliers but failed, Beniwal said.
“There was ₹7 lakh inside the safe, but he could only damage it, not break it. Some of the keys are missing, so he must have taken those, ” according to Beniwal.
The local head office (LHO) of SBI, Delhi, has been informed about the incident. “We tried to arrange a spare or old router from other bank branches on Tuesday, but to no avail. However, the Delhi LHO sent a new router around 10pm on Tuesday, and its technical team set up the router by 2am on Wednesday. We operated as usual on Wednesday, ” Beniwal said.
Based on Beniwal’s complaint, an FIR was registered against the suspect under sections 380 (theft in dwelling house), 457 (lurking house trespass or house breaking by night) and 511 (attempt to commit offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Badshahpur police station on Tuesday, said police.
Inspector Madan Kumar, station house officer (SHO) of Badshahpur police station, said fingerprint experts and a dog squad also visited the bank on Tuesday. “An investigation is underway, and we are trying to ascertain the identity of the suspect and nab him at the earliest, ” he said.