After Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan suspended the station house officer and subdivisional police officer of Kural and ordered a show-cause notice to the superintendent of the area police over the Rs8 million bank robbery at Tarlai last week, the capital police swung into action.

Soon afterward, senior police officers started inspecting the security measures taken by the bank managements on the basis of the standard operating procedure (SOP) provided to them by the police in 2012 and 2014.

However, the police officers found that the SOP was not being followed properly.

A senior police officer said, “We made the bank managements responsible for the security but they put the onus on the private companies providing them security guards.” However, it transpired that the companies had been acting as middlemen to pass on information about any untoward incident in the banks to the police.”

The police inspected those banks which were robbed in the recent past, and found loopholes in their security arrangements. These included two banks where robbers struck in 2011 and 2014 and during one of the incidents killed the gunman of a district and sessions judge of Bahawalpur.

During the security inspection, the bank managements were asked how they informed the police or other security agencies when a robber entered the bank. The bank managers said they pressed the alarm button to alert the company providing them the security guards and got a response within 30 seconds. When asked how they could reply to any phone call from

the security company when a robber is inside, they had no answer.

To verify the claim, the police asked the management of one of the banks located at Tarnol to push the alarm button. When an official of the bank pressed the button, there was no response from the security company.

During the checking of another bank in Tarnol, when the alarm button was pressed, a call was received from the company. But the police asked the bank officials not to attend it.

Shortly afterward, the mobile phones of the staff and landlines of the bank branch started ringing but on the directives of the police no one attended the calls.

After about half an hour when one of the bank employees received the call, the caller expressed his anger as the call was attended after a long time. Later, a senior police officer took the phone and asked the caller what he did when the calls were not received in the bank.

The caller replied that he informed the police and got a reply that they would reach the bank after an hour. But the officer told him that all the police officers concerned were already present in the bank and none of them had received any call.

When the caller was asked on which number he had informed the police, he came up with a wrong number.

The police said the most vulnerable areas in terms of bank robberies were Tarnol, Golra, Sabzi Mandi, Industrial Area and those located on the southern side of the capital.

There are 17 branches of different commercial banks in Tarnol, 19 in Golra, 33 in Industrial Area, 19 in Ramna, 42 in Shalimar, 22 in Karachi Company and 24 in Margalla police areas.

The police officials said bunkers built in the banks for security guards were not satisfactory. They were still using shutters instead of grilled gates as advised by the police, they added.

Besides, the guards were also found performing different duties instead of guarding the banks. It was revealed that a majority of the banks had two security guards – one deployed inside the bank and the other outside.

CCTV cameras installed in the banks were also found outdated and images in the footages could not be identified.

The bank managements were asked to strengthen the security measures keeping in view the SOP provided to them in 2012 and 2014 within a week.

After a week, another inspection would be carried out and the managers of the banks with unsatisfactory security measures would face legal action.

According to the SOP, the administrations of banks should install CCTV cameras inside their buildings and parking lots, said the police officials, adding the banks should also install alarm bells linked with the nearest police station or other banks.

Two or three trained security guards having bulletproof jackets and helmets should be deployed in every bank. The banks should have bulletproof glass bunkers where security guards, an alarm system and CCTV cameras should be placed.

All banks in one market should have contract with the same security company having a similar responding unit.

The police said five groups of robbers, comprising 24 members, were behind the bank robberies in Islamabad. The most active gangs included Atiq gang from Mardan and Israr gang from Kohat. They were involved in bank robberies from Islamabad to Faisalabad, the officials added.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2015

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