NAMAKKAL/THRISSUR: Three states, seven robbers, a hat-trick of ATM heists, a getaway truck with Rs 68 lakh and a automobile within the again, a high-speed police chase, collisions and gunshots – all mixed to ship a climax worthy of a fast-and-furious Friday blockbuster.
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 Below Restore’ sticker exterior to verify no person entered, and used gasoline cutters to get to the money. They might hit two extra ATMs the identical manner 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 getting 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 means of Coimbatore and Erode earlier than getting into Namakkal. When police groups tried to cease it close to Kumarapalayam and Pallipalayam at 9.45am, it raced in 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 automobiles chased the truck for a number of miles earlier than it ran right into a sequence of iron barricades and automobiles lined up throughout the freeway to dam it. Police discovered 5 males within the truck’s cabin. Once they had 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. It was 10.45am
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 Ok Azar Ali (30), from the identical district, was shot within the leg. The arrested males had 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 is likely to be linked to at the least 15 such ATM burglaries throughout south India over the previous six months. She didn’t 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 Highway within the coronary heart of town, and the third at Kolazhy, 5km away.
Police are investigating if the gang was concerned in a Rs 9 lakh ATM heist in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri on September 1.
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 court docket on Saturday. Azar is being handled at Coimbatore Govt Medical School and Hospital.
