Take care, top cop tells city banks

UNSAFE BANKS

By Mateen Hafeez/TNN

Mumbai: The city police would like banks, reeling under a series of robberies, to tighten their security.

Senior police officials said on Thursday they could, at best, help banks; but, ultimately, it was the banks’ job to make robbers’ task difficult.

“This (security) is a matter of banking operation in which we don’t want to interfere. We want them to take a look at the methods which they can employ to protect themselves,’’ Mumbai Police commissioner A N Roy said.

The burglary at the Dadar branch of Dena Bank on Wednesday was the tenth time in the last 12 months that a bank had been targeted. The sum looted or burgled from all the banks would add up to a nice kitty of more than Rs 75 lakh. Most banks hired guards but did not bother to keep their photographs, addresses and other details, Roy said, adding: “Our aim is to curb crime but what can we do if someone is not taking any precaution?’’

Roy could be right. When robbers struck a Ghatkopar bank last month, the guard had gone to change his uniform. “The cashier’s room hardly had any security system. A punch would have been enough to smash the thin wooden wall,’’ Roy said.

Officials said quite a few banks did not have any alarm system and, at most of the places where they existed, they did not work properly. “If you go to a bank, you will find most of the guards filling forms for the visitors or helping strangers to find out an address,’’ an official said.

The Indian Bank’s Oshiwara branch, robbed last Friday, has a foreign exchange facility. But it did not have a guard; the bank depended on the society’s watchman. Dena Bank did not opt for a single guard at night and relied on a watchman hired by the building. Officials say they are doing their best. The 600-odd beat marshals patrol neighbourhoods of 600 banks and over 400 ATM centres and have foiled 35 cases of robbery, theft and dacoity since 2004.

The Times of India, February 17, 2006