One of many robbers was shot useless and 6 arrested. The occasions resulting in this dramatic endgame in Tamil Nadu‘s Namakkal on Friday morning had a deceptively quiet starting in Kerala, simply after midnight Thursday.
Round 2.10am, the gang from Haryana focused the primary of three ATMs close to temple city Thrissur. They used masking spray to blind CCTV cameras, pasted an ‘ATM Underneath Restore’ sticker exterior to verify no person entered, and used fuel cutters to get to the money. They’d hit two extra ATMs the identical method in two hours.
At dawn, the motion would shift to Namakkal, round 255km from Thrissur. Round 6am, district SP S Rajesh Kannan obtained an alert from Kerala Police a few white Creta with seven males coming into TN after robbing three ATMs.
By then, in a transfer from the 2003 thriller ‘The Italian Job’, the Creta and booty had disappeared right into a container truck that had been ready for them close to Mannuthy.
The truck crossed Walayar checkpoint on Kerala-TN border round 5.30am and handed by way of Coimbatore and Erode districts earlier than coming into Namakkal. When police groups tried to cease it close to Kumarapalayam and Pallipalayam at 9.45am, it raced in the direction of Sankari city and hit the Salem-Erode freeway. Close to Veppadai, the truck collided with two bikes and a automobile.
“The truck dragged the automobile for nearly 300ft. One individual was injured,” mentioned P Vadivel, a witness. Over two dozen police vehicles chased the truck for a number of miles earlier than it ran right into a sequence of iron barricades and autos lined up throughout the freeway to dam it.
Police discovered 5 males within the truck’s cabin. Once they have been being rounded up, a noise from the truck’s maintain led them to the opposite two robbers, the numberless Creta, and an ATM machine.
Gang could also be linked to a minimum of 15 such burglaries
One of many robbers attacked inspectors A Dhavamani and Ranjith Kumar with a crowbar, injuring each, say police. Within the melee, the gang tried to flee with a bag containing the money, prompting cops to fireside at them.
H Zumadin (40) of Haryana’s Palwal was killed whereas Okay Azar Ali (30), from the identical district, was shot within the leg.
The arrested males have been recognized as Mohammad Ikram (42) of Nuh, and Mubarak (18), Sabbir Khan (26), Shoukeen (21) and Irfan (32) from Palwal.
Salem DIG E S Uma mentioned the gang could be linked to a minimum of 15 such ATM burglaries throughout south India over the previous six months. She did not say if the amount of money seized from the gang matched the Rs 68 lakh that Kerala Police mentioned was taken from an ATM at Mapranam, close to Irinjalakkuda in Thrissur, one other at Shornur Street within the coronary heart of the town, and the third at Kolazhy, 5km away.
Police are investigating if the gang was concerned in a Rs 9 lakh ATM heist in TN’s Krishnagiri on Sept 1. Two suspects from Haryana’s Mewat have been arrested for that theft.
The DIG mentioned the gang had singled out SBI ATMs in Thrissur. The one in Krishnagiri belonged to the identical financial institution. The arrested robbers will likely be produced in courtroom on Saturday. Azar is being handled at Coimbatore Govt Medical Faculty and Hospital.
