950808

Grindlays

Bank loses

Rs 15.2 m in

Karachi's

biggest-ever

hold-up

KARACHI: The entire city police was put on its toes following Karachi's biggest-ever armed hold-up in which bandits deprived the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Branch of Grindlays' Bank at University Road of Pakistani and foreign currencies amounting to Rs 15.2 million Tuesday morning.

According to police, one person in security guard's uniform came to the bank at 7-15 a.m. The guard on duty namely Sibtain, opened the gate without ascertaining why a new faced guard was knocking at the door. At that time the other guard Fazlur Rehman has already left at 6.00 a.m.

Police said that two security guards are posted at the bank during night and three in day time and since night till opening of bank in the morning, they were not allowed to open the gate.

In the meantime, three more accused dressed in shalwar kameez barged into the bank and over-powered the guard who was without his weapon at that time. Police however, believed that such a statement given by the guard looked dubious.

After four dacoits had taken control of the bank, they took the bank staff, peon, sweeper at gun-point as soon they entered the bank and locked them in the bank's kitchen along with the guard.

From 8-05 a.m. till 8-50 a.m. they kept taking the other staff hostage as soon as they entered the bank and locked them in the kitchen.

Later, they took the two cashiers to the vault and forced them to open it. They then collected the cash in a bag and left the bank after locking the cashiers in the kitchen.

In the meantime Bank Manager Irfanuddin also reached the bank and reported the matter to police.

On receipt of information, DSP Gulshan-e-Iqbal Khawaja Nisar Ahmed and SHO Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi rushed to the bank and inquired about details from the manager who informed that there were 72,00,000 Pakistani rupees, 41,000 UK pounds and 1.89 lakh dollars in the bank which were taken away by dacoits.

Later, SSP East Wajid Ali Durrani and SP Gulshan Mohsin Butt also reached the spot.

The SSP has constituted police teams to nab the dacoits whose sketches, produced by CPLC on police request, have also been circulated.

Police have expressed surprise over the presence of such a heavy amount of currencies in the bank, more particularly in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. More intriguing was the negligence of the guard posted at the bank.

Police were interrogating bank guard Sibtain Shah and further inquires are being conducted by DSP Khawaja Nisar and SHO Niazi.-APP