With the arrest of six of the total 10 accused, the Punjab police on Wednesday claimed to have cracked June 10 shocking case of over ₹8.4 crore loot from a cash management company, namely CMS – Connecting Commerce – in Ludhiana. The company handles huge amount of cash on a daily basis as it fills ATM kiosks of different banks.
Ludhiana Police Commissioner Mandeep Singh Sidhu said that ₹5 crore had already been recovered from the accused, while the hunt was on to nab the remaining four.
Stating that even though none of the accused had any past criminal record, they had tried to make a meticulous plan and did not use mobile phones while committing the crime to mislead the police.
Insider involved
The police said the robbery was planned and spearheaded by one Mandeep Kaur of Barnala and Manpreet Singh of Jagraon with the help of one Manjinder Singh, an employee of CMS, the cash van driver for the past nearly four years. The police said that while Manpreet and Manjinder had been nabbed, Mandeep Kaur was absconding; a look-out circular (LOC) had been issued against her as it was suspected that she might flee the country.
According to police, the four other accused arrested so far are Harwinder Singh alias Lambu, 30, from Jagraon, Paramjit Singh aka Pamma, 38, from Kaunke village, Mandeep Kaur’s brother Harpreet Singh, from Barnala and another accused whose identity was yet to be ascertained. Aside from Mandeep Kaur, her husband Jaswinder Singh, Narinder Singh aka Happy of Jagraon and one Arun Kumar of Barnala are also on the run.
The police said that knowing well that the cash was not deposited in the ATMs on Sundays, the armed miscreants struck the company’s office around 2 am on Saturday.
Conversant with the company's security systems, Manjinder Singh opened the office from the rear side after simply cutting the power to the office rendering the security systems useless.
The offenders easily overpowered the five employees of the company – who were not trained to hand such an eventuality – locked them in the server room before fleeing with the cash which they knew was stocked in rooms and decamped with the company van filled with cash. The robbers later abandoned the van near Dakha village with their three weapons, recovered by police several hours later. The case was cracked after the firm staff was interrogated thoroughly leading to the information about Manjinder Singh.
Gross lapses in firm's security
The police commissioner has written to the state police chief and the government to ban the operations of the company because of its poor arrangement of security measures, manpower and equipment. The police also held that the company appeared to attempt to "adjust" a huge sum of money under the garb of a loot, probe into which was also on.
Meanwhile, DGP Gaurav Yadav also announced a cash reward of ₹10 lakh for the police team for cracking the case.
