A gang of thieves dug a 77-ft tunnel to get into the vaults of a Punjab National Bank branch here and got away with cash and jewellery worth crores.
When the heist was discovered on Monday morning, after a long weekend, and the extent of the loss came to be known, news of the daring burglary spread like wildfire. Men were seen weeping helplessly inside and outside the bank on Tuesday. A jeweller who had kept a stack of silver in his locker was one of them. The thieves prised open 86 lockers.
The bank stands on one side of a road in a residential-cum-commercial district of Sonepat. The tunnel was dug from the deserted and disputed structure on the other side of the road, bang opposite the bank. Bank manager Devender Malik opened the vault-room at 10am. The sight he saw was stunning: Lockers with their guts spilling out, testimony to the grand theft, the locks still intact, but the locker doors hanging open.
On Tuesday, a woman named Saroj sat outside the bank to narrate her woes. She had kept jewellery worth Rs30 lakh in a locker. "All is lost," she sobbed. For the 86 families who have lost their life's savings, the tragedy is all the more hitting because the bank has raised its hands in surrender: It cannot make up for the loss. The gold and jewellery were not insured. As for the Rs40 lakh in cash, that's gone like the wind.
The bank says it is not responsible because it only gives out lockers on rent; what is kept in the lockers is known only to the person who hires the locker. That leaves the case wide open. The police are on the job. There is a chance that there was an insider involved because the thieves knew which direction the tunnel should take to get to the bottom of the strongroom. Digging tools were found in the vacant structure on the other end of the tunnel.
The police have begun investigations. Sonepat SP Arun Singh Nehra said special teams have been constituted to crack the case.
