The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Police concern over lax security in financial units

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 18, 2006

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Police concern over lax security in financial units

G. Anand

Zero security conditions in some bank branches

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Slackness on the part of managements in ensuring security has made a sizeable number of banks and financial institutions in the city vulnerable to crime, according to the police.

City Police Commissioner Manoj Abraham has sent a report to the Police Headquarters stressing the need to convince institutions transacting large amounts of money to take adequate security measures for insulating their establishments against dacoity, robbery and theft.

Several nationalised banks conduct business till 8 p.m. However, most local branch offices that remain open at night function in zero security conditions. Several banks have no security guards at smaller branches. Most banks have a large number of women employees working on night shift. The police are rarely informed when a bank decides to extend its working hours into the night.

Most banks operate from rented buildings in moffusil areas of the city. The cash counters are not properly secured during business hours. "A criminal could easily slip inside the area meant only for staff and perhaps even gain access to the cash room of ill-secured financial institutions," a police official said.

Ideally, bank managements should ensure that licensed firearms are issued to trained security personnel and that the weapons maintained properly. There should be regular security and fire safety drills for bank employees. Video surveillance equipment should be installed to monitor those entering and leaving the bank. Cash and other valuables should be transported only in specially equipped vehicles and under armed guard.

In July last year, a gang of thieves had sneaked into the Life Insurance Corporation's Branch-II office at the Ayurveda College junction and decamped with an iron cash-box containing Rs.7.41 lakhs. At the time of the theft, the door of the cash counter was open and there was no monitoring of those who entered or left the building. The arrest of the suspects from Tamil Nadu several months later revealed that the thieves had planned the operation after observing closely for several days how cash transactions were conducted at the LIC office.

In May 1999, nearly Rs.10 lakhs was stolen from officials of the Union Bank of India as they were transporting the money in a taxi car. An unidentified person, who is believed to have tailed the car on a motorbike driven by his associate, opened the rear door of the vehicle when it was caught in a traffic jam and decamped with the suitcase containing the money. The case was yet to solved.

In 2003, Rs.6 lakh was stolen from the cashier of a private foreign currency exchange firm after he was waylaid by an armed gang on the National Highway bypass near Thiruvallam. The same year, Rs.1 lakh was stolen from a customer who withdrew the amount from the Treasury Branch of the State Bank of Travancore at Statue. The police said that similar thefts had been reported last year from financial institutions and banks in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The police were taking the list of financial institutions in the city as part of its crime prevention drive, an official said.

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