The theft bid was foiled by two alert police constables on night patrol. The miscreants assaulted the policemen before fleeing. The City police launched a massive manhunt and arrested Jintu Devnath (20) and Naboakaur (21), both from Assam, within hours.
The City police control room on Sunday alerted all policemen on night patrol about an attempted ATM theft at Ramagondanahalli, Whitefield.
The cops were asked to check the ATMs in their jurisdiction. Manjunath Swamy and Chikka Narasimhaiah, two constables attached to the Mahadevapura police station, set out on a round following the instructions.
The constables spotted at least two men inside a dark ATM counter in Doddanekundi. Swamy and Narasimhaiah tried to lock them inside, but in vain. “It could not be locked from outside. So one of us held on to the door so that the miscreants could not escape. But they shattered the glass door with an iron rod. A few shards hit us as well. They escaped taking advantage of the chaos. We chased the miscreants, but could not capture them,” the constables said.
On their return to the counter, the policemen were shocked to see the guard brutally murdered. Hari Shankar Sharma, a security guard with AP Security Private Ltd, was from Madhya Pradesh. He lived at Labour Colony, Kadubeesanahalli, here. P S Harsha, DCP (East), said Sharma was stabbed on the forehead, chest and abdomen. He could have been hit on the head with an iron rod as well. He died on the spot.
The miscreants had tried to break open the ATM and succeeded partially. But they could not reach the safe, where the money was stacked. Harsha said they would have succeeded in their attempt had the cops not reached on time.
He said security guards at ATMs should be adequately armed, unlike Sharma, who did not have any weapon. “If the security guard had a firearm, he could have saved himself,” Harsha said.
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