Rajasthan: Brutal murder raises concerns of ATM safety

Raising concern about safety inside bank ATMs, a horrific CCTV footage showed how a bunch of armed assailants brutally murdered a guard sleeping inside a ATM kiosk of a nationalised bank in Chidawa town of Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district. In the clippings that appeared online Thursday, four men were seen entering the kiosk in the early hours of June 9. One of them hit the sleeping guard’s head repeatedly with a wooden club. He later succumbed to the injuries.

The robbers then tried unsuccessfully to break the CCTV camera, and also failed to rob the ATM. A week earlier, a man was stabbed inside a ATM booth in Jodhpur. CCTV footage from inside the ATM centre showed a person standing outside the ATM booth, keeping a lookout. He entered the booth just when the victim was about finish his transaction and stabbed him thrice with a knife. The victim tried to save himself and also raised an alarm but the accused fled the spot with an accomplice who was waiting on a motorcycle around 50 meter from the ATM. In November last year, two robbers allegedly tried to loot the ATM of a nationalised bank after thrashing a guard, but had to flee as the latter was able to make a call to the police.

Security arrangements in ATMs, particularly in rural areas, have been a cause of concern of late. Last year robbers targeted one ATM every six days on an average.

The matter was the top issue discussed in a review meeting in Bikaner during which ADG R.P. Meharda reportedly said that rising incidents of theft and uprooting ATMs had put a question mark on the functioning of the police force.

The police meanwhile claim that it alone cannot check ATM robberies. Cops accuse banks of being lethargic in making adequate security arrangements. “Banks show lethargy in deploying guards to man them round the clock,” a senior police officer said.

“What can a single unarmed person with no formal training do against armed robbers ” asked an official with a nationalized bank. Besides, the issue is often caught in red tape. “We can’t put a guard unless there is permission from the head office,” he said.

Banks have thus chosen a more practical approach. Branch managers in rural areas close down the ATM kiosks in the evening. Though this has been protested, officials assert that this is the only way to provide sustainable ATM services.