The Goa police successfully cracked the Keri branch State Bank of India (SBI) kidnapping and robbery case within 24 hours and arrested three of the five accused involved in the crime.
The branch manager of SBI bank, namely Likhit Pachanekar, had lodged a written complaint with Bicholim police where he informed the police that he was kidnapped by the accused at Amona at around 8:30 pm.
While he was going home on his two-wheeler on September 13, he was reportedly carried off by five unknown people.
In his complaint, he told the police that he was mentally tortured and was asked forcefully to open the locker rooms and remove the gold and cash at gunpoint after being allegedly tortured the whole night.
The accused threatened the bank manager that they would kill him and his family thereafter, the accused forcibly took him to different places in Sanquelim at knifepoint and later to the SBI branch on Wednesday in a car.
DGP Jaspal Singh said that “at gunpoint, the accused constrained the bank manager to open the main shutter of the bank.”
The accused then unlocked the bank’s safe vault and took away cash and gold belonging to different customers.
The accused later dumped the bank manager in an unconscious state at a roadside in Old Goa.
After regaining consciousness, Pachanekar realised that he was around Old Goa and went to the police station to lodge a complaint about the shocking incident.
Within no time, they grabbed the accused and recovered Rs 5.5 lakh cash out of Rs 8.7 lakh, with over 1 kg of gold.
The police have recovered a knife, a gun and a four-wheeler that were used for the commission of crimes.
Eight teams of police from both the districts gathered technical and local intelligence and managed to arrest Raju Kumar, Jitendar Kumar, and Sahil Khan, who is known to be the mastermind of the heist.
