TN police forms 9 teams to crack ATM heist

Chennai, Feb 14 Tamil Nadu police have constituted 9 special teams to crack the ATM heist at Tiruvannamalai district in which Rs 72.50 lakh was burgled.

According to police, the accused are outsiders. Northern Zone Inspector General of Police N. Kannan, who is in charge of the investigation, refused to divulge the details of the investigation but added that the culprits would soon be nabbed.

The heist took place early on Sunday in four ATMs in Tiruvannamalai district within a distance of 20 km.

Sources in police told that special teams have been deployed in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The CCTV visuals on the road in Vellore, Ranipet or Tiruppatur districts are also being scanned as these could be the route taken by the culprits for escape.

Police said that all four ATM machines were cut within two hours. Welding machines  used for cutting them open have taken just 15 minutes. The investigating team is also probing this angle.

Meanwhile, the IG has ordered the transfer of six police officers, including Special assistant inspector and head constable and policemen from Tiruvannamalai police station to district armed battalion.

Tamil Nadu Director General of Police C. Sylendrababu held a meeting with 51 senior executives and officers of various banks and advised them to use high definition CCTV cameras in ATM kiosks. He also asked the bank officers to save the feed from CCTV to cloud storage rather than in hard disks.

The police chief also directed the bank officials to use CCTV cameras in a discreet manner for surveillance of the culprits and to get a closer image of the face of those entering the ATMs.

He has also instructed the bank officials to connect burglar alarms in ATMs to the local police stations so that the police are updated of any burglary or theft.