Five armed robbers made off with valuables worth Rs 2.8 million from branch of a local bank located at Raiwind Road in the Choong Police precincts on Thursday. This incident was not the first of its kind as already six similar incidents were reported in different areas of the city during the last couple of months. To a surprise, the investigation wing of the Lahore Police has not been able to arrest even a single accused involved in the aforesaid mishaps. According to details, five robbers wearing shalwar qameez, reached the branch of Meezan Bank located at Raiwind Road using a Suzuki Mehran. Two of the five bandits managed to sneak into the bank without any checking. Security Guard Rehmat Bashir deployed at entrance gate stopped the other two accomplices of the robbers, who on stopping got infuriated and started thrashing Rehmat.
Robbers also snatched his pump action gun and broke it into two pieces. Four robbers after entering the bank, took the other security guard, customers and bank staff hostage at gunpoint. The fifth accomplice entered the bank and went straight to the cash counter and collected Rs 2.8 million in cash after breaking the glass of the cash counter. Robbers fled along with the looted cash and while escaping locked the branch’s entrance gate using a wire lock. Heavy police contingents under the supervision of the DIG Investigations Lahore, CIA SP Umer Virk, SP Operation and Investigation Saddar Division immediately reached the spot after bank staff informed them about the mishap at around 12:35pm.
Saddar Division SP Investigations Hassan Sukhaira told Pakistan Today that they have collected fingerprints, recording of CCTV cameras and other circumstantial from the spot. He said that a case has been registered and investigations were underway. Sukhaira said that initially they will send fingerprints for forensic tests and try to get pictures from the CCTV video, which they will match the pictures and fingerprints with records of the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA).
DIG Investigations Amir Ali Malik, talking to journalists at the spot, said that the modus of operandi of the bandits involved in looting cash from Meezan Bank was quite similar to the robbers, who had carried out robberies earlier this year in different banks. He confessed that the investigations wing of the Lahore Police has not been able to make any major breakthrough in the earlier cases. Malik said that if police had nabbed the culprits involved in earlier robberies then there were bright chances that the incident would not have happened.
He criticised bank authorities for not making proper security arrangements adding that security guards deployed at the security of the bank were not well-trained and roaming here and there leaving their duty place. This was seventh incident of bank robbery in the city during this year.
