2 ATM thefts worth lakhs cracked; two behind bars

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 1

With the arrest of two persons, the local police today cracked two cases of stealing of cash to the tune of lakhs of rupees from two ATMs, located near Guru Harkrishan Public School on the GT road and in Majith Mandi.

Among those arrested is an employee of an ATM maintenance company. The ATM mechanic has been identified as Deepak Gill (35), a resident of Guru Amardas Avenue. His accomplice has been identified as Shamsher Singh, alias Shera, who originally hailed from Kairowal village in Tarn Taran.

Police Commissioner SS Srivastava, along with Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) JS Walia, said Deepak Gill was an IT graduate who had been working with Advance Graphic Service company, responsible for the maintenance of ATM machines. Shamsher works as a property dealer while he also run school vans.

Srivastava said the duo did recee of the area and found that cash was loaded in the Punjab and Sind Bank ATM near Guru Harkrishan Public School on Saturday. On August 10, they decamped with Rs 9.39 lakh after opening the cash box of the ATM. Before committing crime, they sprayed paint on the CCTV camera lens. They also changed their looks in order to hoodwink the police, the police commissioner said.

Their interrogation revealed that they had stolen Rs 9.45 lakh from an ATM in Majith Mandi on May 14 this year in a similar fashion. That case was yet to be cracked till their arrest. In this case, the cash box was opened with the help of the keys which Deepak managed to take from the bank premises. Ironically, the bank authorities failed to inform the police about the missing keys. 

It was also found that ATM mechanic Deepak was known to different bank officials in the city and they used to call him directly whenever a fault occured in the ATMs. However, the AGS company, where he used to work, had expelled him from the job. But the company did not inform the bank authorities.

Walia said whenever bank officials called him for ATM repair, they made him turn back to avoid seeing the password. However, he used to videograph the entire process to know the password without their knowledge. He said he had procured the password of an ATM located at the airport road and they were to target the same ATM to steal cash in the coming days.