Five armed robbers looted over Rs 1.80 crore in cash and gold jewellery from a branch of the Bank of Maharashtra in Pune district in broad daylight on Thursday, police said.
The incident took place at Pimparkhed in Shirur tehsil, said a senior official.
"Around 1.30 pm, when there were few customers, four robbers who were wearing masks entered the bank while another remained outside," said Abhinav Deshmukh, Superintendent of Police, Pune Rural.
They threatened the bank manager and cashier with guns and asked them to hand over cash and also the gold ornaments from lockers.
As all the robbers were wielding guns, the manager and cashier did as told, the SP said.
The robbers fled in an SUV with gold ornaments worth Rs 1.50 crore and Rs 33 lakh in cash. The entire incident took place in four or five minutes, Deshmukh said.
"Pimparkhed is a remote village, therefore the robbers might have decided to strike there. They also might have conducted a recce before," he said.
"There was no security guard as it is a small branch. It has a security alarm system but the manager or cashier did not press it as they were scared," the SP said.
"We have obtained CCTV footage of the branch and formed multiple teams to track down the robbers," the police officer added.
