Bank robbed in broad daylight

Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

A special police team has been detailed to apprehend the robbers who got away with a huge haul of currency notes from a private bank in Colombo.

It was a daring bank robbery staged by two underworld men in broad daylight in the heart of Wellawatta even before the bank opened for business on Friday morning. The robbery took place at a private bank situated on Galle road around 7.30 a.m. where the robbers got way with cash Rs. 13 million rupees having tied up its employees, Police Media Spokesman, SSP Ranjith Gunesekara told the "Sunday Observer."

The robbery has been planned with meticulous precision. It all began when someone pretending to be an official from the Bank's headquarters at Duplication Road phoned up the security officers at the Wellawatta branch and told them to permit repairmen to enter the bank to attend to repairs of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). The security officers, who believed it to be an authentic call, allowed the two men to enter the bank premises when they called over around 7.30.a.m.

The two men, who turned out to be robbers, pulled out a pistol after threatening to shoot both the security officers tied them up with a rope. They told them to remain silent and waited patiently until other employees arrived for work. When employees arrived they threatened to shoot them as well and tied them up one by one. The robbers thereafter had waited patiently until the manager arrived, who was also threatened at the point of the gun to open the bank safe.

The two then stuffed currency notes of higher denomination into a sack and drove off in the manager's car bearing number 300-4433. The car was later found abandoned at Rudra Mawatha, Wellawatta.