KARACHI, Nov 29: Four armed men took away more than Rs3 million from a bank branch in Ferozabad on Thursday with the help of a private security guard in what appears to be a pattern of robberies in recent days.

Police said that the guard, Qurban Ali, belonging to a private security firm, had been present with the robbers at the PICIC Commercial Bank’s Ferozabad branch since late Wednesday. He started holding bank employees hostage one after the other as they began arriving, they added.

“They (the robbers) took hardly half an hour to complete the job,” said Shabbir Mustafa, SHO of the Ferozabad police station. “We have gathered information about the security guard and a police party has already been dispatched to Dadu, his ancestral home, to locate him.”

The police have registered an FIR (No.943/2007) under section 395 PPC.

Surprisingly, police sources said, the security firm did not have his data although the guard had been hired six months back. “We have conveyed our concern over such carelessness and irresponsible attitude of private security firms to our high ups,” said the SHO.

The latest robbery was the fourth to have taken place this month. In the earlier robberies, three bank branches in Jamshed Quarters, Gulbahar and Gulberg areas were deprived of about Rs9 million and security guards had played a key role in facilitating the robberies.