Cashier stages Rs 22 lakh bank robbery, held

VELLORE: Within hours after a robbery of Rs 22 lakh from the

Central Bank of India

on the premises of the

CMC Hospital

in

Vellore

was reported, police arrested the bank's 28year-old cashier for embezzling the cash and staging a burglary drama.

The

Vellore North Police

arrested C Nagaraj of Rayapuram in Chennai. He was transferred from the Mount Road branch of the Central Bank of India to the branch in CMC Hospital in Vellore 10 months ago.

At 12.30am on Wednesday, he contacted the bank manager Ashwin and cashier Ravi Ram and told them that Rs 22 lakh was missing from the chest. He also told them that robbers gained entry into the bank through a ventilator after bending the iron bars. The manager alerted the police. Preliminary inquiry revealed that Nagaraj was given the responsibility of handling cash after one of the cashiers went on medical leave. He had been collecting cash during the third shift between 8 pm and midnight.

Though Rs 67 lakh and Rs 65 lakh collected in the first shift and second shift were intact, Rs 22 lakh collected in the third shift on Wednesday was found to be missing. “After going through CCTV footage, we ruled out involvement of outsiders. We started inquiring the staff. We suspected Nagaraj's role in the case,“ said investigation officer M Arivazhagan. Police had also found a footprint in one of the rooms.It matched with the footprint of Nagaraj. He was picked up for inquiry.

On interrogation, he confessed to the crime and divulged that he took the cash and hid it in one of the rooms in the bank. Police recovered nine bundles of Rs 2,000 notes and eight bundles of Rs500 atop a bureau in the room.

Based on his confession, the police registered a case against Nagaraj under sections 381( theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of IPC and arrested him.