Puthur bank robbery- CID grills suspects

by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probing the Puthur bank robbery last month took in for questioning six suspects, and quizzed them whether there were others linked to the robbery. The six suspects wanted in connection with the daylight bank robbery at Puthur, Batticaloa last month were arrested recently by a team of police officers led by HQI of the Mannar police following a tip off.

They were arrested at a Guest House in Mannar attempting to flee to India, Police Media Spokesman SP, Prishantha Jayakody told the Sunday Observer.

The six suspects linked to the robbery were handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigations. The daylight robbery at the People’s Bank at Puthur, Batticaloa took place on June 30. Six men armed in masks stormed the People’s Bank around 1.40 p.m. The robbers thereafter threatened to kill the bank security officers on duty by pointing the firearms at them.

The robbers walked into the bank and threatened to kill the staff if they did not cooperate with them.

The robbers emptied the cash and gold jewellery from the four iron safes into sacks and walked out of the bank after assaulting the security officers on duty.

According to police Rs. 3,729,196 million in cash and gold jewellery valued at Rs. 152,720 million which were in four iron safes were stolen.