Karachi: In one of the biggest bank heists
in Pakistan, a security guard and his accomplices allegedly
looted a private bank and decamped with approximately 600
million rupees in the port city Karachi.
The security guard Shahid let in two of his accomplices
into the bank on Saturday night after it was closed for public
and they first tied up two other guards and spent the whole
night cutting through the vaults and collecting their loot,
police said.
"They used gas steel cutters to break open safety deposit
vaults. We are still trying to confirm the exact value of the
robbery from the bank personnel but the initial figures are
around 600 million rupees," a senior police officer said.
"We have arrested two people in connection with the
robbery and are interrogating them and we have also cancelled
the license of the security agency whose personnel were posted
at the bank," city police chief Waseem Ahmed said.
The heist at the branch located at II Chundrigar road is
not the first such incident of banks being looted by its own
security guards.
"There are around 215 registered private security
companies operating in the city with a total staff of some
80,000 people. But most of these security agencies employ
guards without verifying their credentials or checking their
background," Waseem Ahmed said.
The city police chief said steps would be taken to
tighten the procedure for security agencies to employ guards.
"Most of the guards come from other provinces and give
false addresses and documents so when they abscond it becomes
difficult to trace them," he said.
Private security agencies have mushroomed in Karachi and
other parts of the country in the last few years due to the
worsening law and order situation and the growing incidents of
terrorism with these agencies content on employing untrained
personal in low pay scales to make big profits.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, December 13, 2009, 21:54