In a significant breakthrough in the bank robbery cases, the Chennai Police have zeroed in on a suspect whose image was recorded by Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) network installed in a nationalised bank where he allegedly went to conduct a recce, highly placed police sources said on Tuesday.
Even as a couple of employees of the Bank of Baroda (BOB) branch in Perungudi, where a robbery took place on January 23, identified the middle-aged suspect, investigators are working with the staff of the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) branch in Keelkattalai to ascertain his involvement in the robbery that occurred on Monday. “Prima facie, it appears to be a former student or an educated youth…he went to conduct a recce in a nationalised bank where his image was captured by surveillance cameras. Though the well-dressed man was accompanied by another person, his image was not found in the footage. We are suspecting the involvement of some former students,” a senior police official told The Hindu.
The modus operandi of the robbers was to identify banks that did not have CCTVs. They preferred to attack around 1 p.m. probably because the crowd would be less. “In both cases, the gang chose to loot on a Monday because cash collection is usually more on that day,” an investigator said.
