Masked men loot jewellery worth ₹12 crore, cash at gunpoint in Udaipur

Police superintendent Vikas Kumar Sharma said that the robbers barged into Manappuram Finance Limited’s office in Pratap Nagar in Udaipur and looted the jeweller and cash

In a daring robbery in the business hub of Rajasthan’s second biggest city, Udaipur, five masked men held employees of a non-banking financial company hostage and decamped with gold jewellery worth ₹12 crore apart from ₹10 lakh in cash at gunpoint on Monday, a police officer said.

CCTV footage shows one of the robbers with hostages.(HT_Print)

Udaipur’s police superintendent, Vikas Kumar Sharma, said the robbers entered the office of Manappuram Finance Limited on the first floor of a commercial building in Pratap Nagar in Udaipur, about 25 minutes after the establishment opened. Pratap Nagar in a busy marketplace with grocery shops and several offices.

“The five masked men entered the office through its unguarded front door,” the SP said.

Police said when the robbers entered the office, there were only five employees and a customer present there. The office has the main room where the employees interact with the customers, the manager’s cabin and a chest room, where gold and money was kept.

Police said the five masked men pulled out guns from the bags they were carrying and instructed all those present in the main room to move into a corner. “They threatened to shoot them (employees and customers) if they did not follow the instructions. They took their mobile phones and disconnected the landline,” the SP said.

Durgesh Sharma, who works as a clerk at Manappuram Finance, said they were preparing to receive customers as the office starts work around 9.30am, when he heard some noise.

“Five armed men with their faces covered with masks and one wearing a helmet barged into the office and started shouting asking all of us to stop work immediately. Initially, we did not understand what was happening. They asked us not to move and pointed guns at us. All of us panicked,” he said.

Sharma said, one of them stood guard at the main entry gate, two were pointing guns at those present and two others barged into the manager’s room.

“They pushed us and made us stand with faces towards the wall. They then took out ropes from their bags and tied us. They pushed us down on the floor,” a visibly shaken Sharma told HT an hour after the incident.

Sharma, who was tied up in the main hall, then heard the two robbers in the manager’s room asking for the keys to the chest. “When manager saheb refused, he was beaten up. A robber came out and called in the assistant manager about the keys. He was also taken inside the manager’s room,” Sharma said.

He added that there was a lot of commotion inside and the robbers could be heard threatening the manager and his assistant. “They (manager and his assistant) were also slapped a few times as the robbers kept searching for the keys. When one of them put a pistol to the head of the manager, he gave them the keys,” Sharma said.

A police officer familiar with the investigation confirmed this sequence of events and said while a robber guarded the manager and his assistant, two robbers opened the strong room and started filling their bags with jewellery and cash into two bags they were carrying.

“While leaving the bank they tied the hands of the manager and his assistant and locked the main door from outside to prevent any of the hostages from coming out,” the police officer quoted above said.

The five robbers casually walked down the stairs and fled on two motorbikes parked on the ground floor, police said. CCTV footage from a camera installed on the ground floor showed the robbers walking towards their bikes with no signs of panic and then driving away. According to the CCTV footage, they fled around 9.40am.

The SP said although the exact worth of the looted jewellery was yet to be ascertained, the manager estimated that 20kg gold worth about ₹12 crore and ₹10 lakh cash was taken away. The Kerala-based gold mortgage company has 1,100 customers in its Pratap Nagar branch.

The police were informed about the robbery around 9.50am when one of the employees was able to untie his hands.

“We immediately rushed senior police officers. We have questioned the employees and have scanned the CCTV footage. An alert has been sounded across the district,” the SP said.

The officer said that they were also probing the possibility of an insider job as the robbers knew the time when there were no customers and knew about the office layout, including the strongroom. “We are checking the CCTV installed in the office to see whether anyone of them visited the office earlier too,” he said.

A police officer wondered how an office dealing with so much cash functioned without a security guard. “The bank manager told us that it was the company’s policy not to employ security guards,” the officer said. This was also confirmed by Sharma. The manager, Pawan Meena, did not respond to phone calls or messages.

An employee of Axis Bank, which is on the ground floor, said they came to know about the robbery only when the police came. “Nobody suspected anything suspicious as the Manappuram office used to get very few people every day,” the employee, who did not wish to be named, said. Even the security guard outside Axis Bank did not sense anything suspicious till the police came.