A survey will be conducted to review the existing security measures in all the banks and ATM kiosks across Bhubaneswar, the Commissionerate Police said on Tuesday.
The move comes in the backdrop of several incidents of bank and ATM loot cases reported in the Capital city in the recent past.
Bhubaneswar DCP, Umashankar Dash said clear instructions have been issued by the Twin City Police Commissioner to constitute a joint team comprising three senior police and bank officials for conducting the review. According to Dash, the team will assess vulnerability of banks, ATMs and supervise the security measures in place at such financial institutions in different parts of the city.
“The team will inspect and conduct an audit of the RBI related security guidelines and other guidelines issued by Commissionerate Police like installation of CCTVs, alarms and other confidential security measures,” said Dash.
The senior police official said that the team will check whether all such security gadgets are in working conduction so that they could play a crucial role in emergency situations.
“We will take appropriate steps based on the report submitted by the team to the Police Commissioner,” said Dash. It is pertinent to mention here that the Commissionerate Police regularly holds meetings with bank officials.
Several measures including installation of CCTVs, alarm systems and deployment of security guards at ATMs had been suggested in the past. However, there are still many ATMs which are unmanned and they are always in the target of the miscreants.
In August 2021, three miscreants were nabbed by locals at Old Town area when they were trying to loot a State Bank of India ATM located at Badhei Banka square in under Lingaraj Police limits.
In October 2020, miscreants had looted around Rs 27 lakh cash from a PNB ATM kiosk under Infocity police station area. Later, two accused, Samarjyot Singh, who hails from Punjab and Zafar Sadiq, a native of Kerala, were arrested in connection with the loot by the Vizag police.