Kurnool police have arrested four persons who were allegedly behind the foiled attempt to rob a ATM at Chinnatekur in February. Two of the main accused were involved in several ATM thefts in North India, the police said. All the four accused are from Haryana.
According to Superintendent of Police Vikrant Patel, unidentified persons attached a rope to the shutters of the Bank of Baroda ATM centre on the National Highway-44 service road at Chinnatekur village and hooked it to a towing vehicle and forcibly opened it. They tied the ATM machine to the vehicle with ropes and pulled it outside. The incident happened at 1 a.m. on February 24.
Local youth noticed the miscreants trying to rob the ATM and informed the police. Noticing this, the miscreants left the ATM on the roadside and fled in the towing vehicle. Police later found the vehicle on the NH-44 near Ullindakonda crossroads and started an investigation.
Mr. Patel said investigation revealed that the towing vehicle was stolen from Kurnool city and another case was also registered at the Kurnool IV Town police in the incident.
The SP said investigation was carried out based on the CCTV footage collected from near the ATM centre and in the Kurnool city from where the towing vehicle was stolen. “By analysing the CCTV footage and gathering other technical evidences we found that the accused went towards Bengaluru in a container vehicle from Kurnool and tracked the company that owned the container,” Mr. Patel said.
Based on the information provided by the management of the container company, the driver was identified as Showkar Khan and through his mobile phone contact details, the other three have been identified and arrested, the SP said. The three other accused are 38-year-old Shahid Khan, 35-year-old Imran Khan and 43-year-old Jamshad Khan and all of them from Haryana.
The SP said Shahid Khan was involved in 26 cases of ATM thefts and Imran Khan in 15 cases in Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh States. The antecedents of the two others is being investigated.
Police formed four special teams with officials and personnel from Kurnool Rural, III Town, Ullindakonda and Orvakal police stations and took up an extensive search for the accused. The accused were caught from a dhaba at Chetlamallapuram village on the National Highway-44 and recovered gas cutter, duplicate keys, two knives, gloves, cooling glasses and other equipment from them, the SP said.
Mr. Patel said the police of all the States where the accused have committed ATM robberies were informed about the arrest.
Published – March 06, 2025 03:24 pm IST
