Chennai police gun down five suspected bank robbers

February 23, 2012

gun_Feb23Chennai, February 23: Five men suspected to be behind two bank robberies in Chennai in the last one month were killed in a gun battle with the city police atVelachery in the wee hours of Thursday.

Police commissioner J K Tripathy said the gun battle lasted for 15 minutes, from 1am to 1.15am, leaving two police inspectors injured and all the five suspects dead. The suspects were identified as Chandrika Rey from West Bengal, and Vinod Kumar, Vinay Prasad, Abhay Kumar and Harish Kumar from Bihar. Two of them are former students of an engineering college in the city suburbs. Police recovered five guns and bundles of cash from the suspects.

Two days after the gang struck a branch of Indian Overseas Bank in Keelkattalai on Monday, city police commissioner J K Tripathy had held a press conference on Wednesday to release a video of a suspect allegedly doing a recce at a nationalised bank. "With people's cooperation, we will nab them soon," he had said.

Chennai went to sleep with that reassurance, and woke up to the tale of a bloody encounter. Tripathy said on Thursday that his team got a tip-off around midnight about the suspects staying on the ground floor of a three-storey house on A L Mudali Street in Velachery. "We immediately sent a team of 14 led by deputy commissioner of police (Adyar) M Sudhakar and two assistant commissioners Kannan (Madipakkam) and Manickavel (Guindy)," the commissioner said.

The team surrounded the house and three police inspectors took position by the windows, while three other inspectors targeted the main door of the house. The commissioner said the suspects opened fire at the police team at 1am, injuring inspectors P Ravi (Teynampet) and Christian Jayasil (Thoraipakkam). The police team broke open the window and the door and opened fire at the suspects. The gun battle left the suspects badly injured. They were rushed to the Government General Hospital, where the doctors declared them dead on arrival. The injured inspectors were admitted to the Government Royapettah Hospital.

Police sources said they got information from a person, who didn't want to reveal his identity, about the robbers. "After seeing the suspect's photograph released by the police commissioner on Wednesday, the informer claimed that the suspect was staying at his relative's house on A L Mudali Street, Nethaji Road near the Tamil Nadu Housing Board quarters in Velachery," a source said.

Police sources said the robbers stayed in the house since last December after paying an advance of Rs 20,000. Though the incident happened in a residential area, no one in the neighbourhood appeared to know what had happened. Reporters who reached the spot soon after the incident were kept at bay till 5.45am.

Finally, when they were let in, the suspects' 'den' turned out to be a 300 sqft portion of a house, with a bedroom, a hall, a bathroom and a kitchen. Among the blood-soaked belongings of the suspects was a red, black and white checked shirt one of the suspects was seen wearing in the video clip released by the police commissioner hardly 10 hours before the gun battle. The suspect, the police identified, was Vinod Kumar, doing a recce at a nationalised bank.

Three more portions of the house were occupied by families. Police are questioning the house owners, brothers Deivendran and Murugan. As the court has directed a magistrate probe should be conducted in the police encounters, police have informed the chief metropolitan magistrate about the incident.


About a month before the gang struck the IOB branch at Keelkattalai, a branch of Bank of Baroda was robbed on January 23 last. The robbers took away Rs 19 lakh from BoB and Rs 14 lakh from IOB in a swift operation by holding the bank staffs and customers at gunpoint.


Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
January 14,2020

Farukkhabad, Jan 14: In a shocking incident, a new-born baby was mauled to death by a dog inside the operation theatre (OT) of a private hospital in Farukkhabad on Monday.

Family members of the baby boy said that they noticed the hospital staff shooing a dog away from inside the operation theatre and soon after, they were told the baby boy, born just two hours ago, was dead.

The family members said that they found the baby's body on the floor and it had deep gashes around the neck and other parts of the body.

District magistrate Manvendra Singh has ordered an FIR and the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Chandra Shekhar said the hospital has been sealed and an inquiry ordered into the incident.

Sources said that the hospital where the incident took place was unregistered and was being run adjacent to a government hospital.

According to the FIR lodged with Sadar Kotwali police, the infant's father Ravi Kumar said he had admitted his wife Kanchan in the hospital on Monday and she was taken for a C-section to the operation theatre.

After the delivery, Kanchan was shifted to the ward but the family was told that the baby would be shifted later.

An hour later, the family was informed that the baby had died.

The family members then saw the hospital staff trying to chase a dog out of the operation theatre.

The family members forced their way into the operation theatre and found the infant lying on the floor with several injuries on the neck.

The police said that the baby's body has been preserved for examination and post mortem.

The FIR has been registered against Dr Mohit Gupta, and some of the staff members who were present during the delivery.

The hospital owner, Vijay Patel, however, feigned complete ignorance about the incident and said that he had been told that the baby was born dead.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
January 11,2020

New Delhi, Jan 11: Assets worth Rs 78 crore have been attached by the ED in connection with a money laundering probe against former ICICI Bank Chairman Chanda Kochhar and others, officials said on Friday.

A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been issued for attachment of the properties that includes Kochhar's Mumbai-based house and some other assets belonging to a company linked to her, they said.

The book value of the attached assets is Rs 78 crore, they said.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and others in a case of alleged irregularities and money laundering in giving loans by the bank to the Videocon group.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
July 12,2020

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.