Kanpur, Feb 10 (IANS): A clerk and a guard of Kanpur zoo have been suspended in connection with a robbery where miscreants escaped with the 2.5 quintal vault containing Rs 2.92 lakh in cash from the treasury room.

After failing to break it open, the thieves had dumped the vault under a bridge on the zoo premises itself and fled.

The police recovered the vault hidden in straws under the wooden bridge during combing.

Director Zoo, K.K. Singh, said both the employees - ticket booking clerk Brijesh and security guard Bharat Singh - have been suspended for dereliction of duty.

Singh said the clerk's fault was that he had said that on January 26, Rs 5.92 lakh came from the ticket sale, but when the vault was found, only Rs 5.62 lakh of cash was found in it. The watchman has been suspended for not guarding the premises properly, he added.

Notably, miscreants had made away with a vault weighing two-and-a-half quintals from the cash room of the Kanpur zoo on the night of January 26.

When the officers reached the cash room on January 27 morning, they found it to be locked from outside, but the safe was missing. They later lodged a police complaint.

The vault was recovered by the police from the zoo premises on January 28.