From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, May 17: It is now the turn of a security guard of the ATM booth of the public sector Union Bank of India to fall prey to the robbery attempt by armed assailants at K R Puram in Bengaluru late on Saturday night.
The ATM security guard, identified as Mimmatullah Barbia, was on night duty at the ATM of Union Bank of India in K R Puram near the busy Tin Factory area was brutally murdered by armed assailants apparently after they made a futile attempt to decamp with the cash stored in the ATM.
The assailants are believed to have clubbed the security guard to death after gagging his mouth with plaster and tying his hands and legs.
The armed robbers pulled down the shutters of the ATM and fled the scene after killing the security guard on being unable to open the ATM.
The incident came to light only on Sunday evening, when the Bank’s agency for filling the ATM with cash visited the ATM. When they opened the shutters, they were shocked to see the dead body of the security guard, who had been tied and gagged.
The Bank’s agency men immediately alerted the K R Puram police, who rushed to the spot to conduct investigation.
According to DCP (East) Satish Kumar, the ATM was found to have been damaged but had not been opened. Preliminary investigations revealed that the attackers had not succeeded in their attempt to rob the ATM.
It may be recalled that 44-year-old lady, JyothiUday, who is working in Corporation Bank and had gone to the ATM near the busy N R Square in the City early in the morning on November 19, 2013, had been attacked by an armed person.
Even though the CCTV cameras installed at the ATM had captured the image of the attacker and recorded the entire incident of the attack, and the Bengaluru City Police had announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh to anybody giving information leading to the arrest and the Andhra Pradesh government had announced another Rs 2 lakh award as the attacker was allegedly from Andhra Pradesh, no arrest has been made even after 19 months till date.