RAWALPINDI: A private security guard who the police are considering to be the leading suspect in ransacking the lockers of a private bank had links with the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The security guard, identified as Sharaft Ali, belonged to the Matta area of Swat where his house had been demolished during the military operation after which he moved to Karachi and later returned to Hassanabdal and settled there in December 2016.

Cash and valuables worth over Rs100 million were stolen from more than two dozen lockers from the private bank’s Chur Karpal branch on Saturday night.

Sources said Sharaft had been deployed at the bank one-and-a-half months ago by a private security agency after getting police clearance from the Swat district.

A senior police official told Dawn that the investigation showed that Sharafat had links with the TTP when he was in Swat and his house had also been demolished by security forces during the operation in the district.

Cash and valuables worth over Rs100m were taken away from the private bank branch

He said after his house was demolished, Sharafat moved to Karachi and then returned to his home district. In December 2016, he settled in Hassanabdal.

“After getting police clearance from the station house officer Matta, the deputy superintendent of police and the district police officer Swat, the suspect joined the private security agency and was deployed in another private bank in Rawalpindi. Later, he switched over to the private bank branch in the Naseerabad area and targeted it,” the police officer said.

He added that it was to be investigated how he managed to get the police clearance from Swat since he had links with the TTP.

The two guarantors who verified Sharafat for the security guard job were missing from their homes.

The bank branch was found robbed when its manager arrived on duty on February 6. The manager found the steel door of the strong room opened, lockers broken and cash and valuables missing. The security guard was also missing.

“Masking tapes were affixed on the CCTV cameras installed inside the bank while pictures of a banana were drawn on the lockers with Zindgi Aik Khail Hai (life is a game) written on the wall,” the sources close to the investigation added.

They said cutters were used by the robbers to open the lockers which contained cash, prize bonds and gold jewellery.

The bank manager in the FIR expressed suspicion that Sharafat, who had been on duty on Saturday-Sunday night, could be involved in the locker break-in.

Sharafat was accompanied by two other accomplices, including his brother-in-law, the FIR added. They had been using their mobile phones only to talk with each other.

Sharafat bought four new mobile phones along with SIMs but did not use his personal phone for talking to anybody else except his accomplices for executing his plan.

The sources believed that chances of police capturing the leading suspect were slim, adding the looted money could be used in terrorism.

However, DSP Raja Taifoor, who is leading the investigation, told Dawn that the robbers would be arrested soon as police teams had been sent after them.

“Police have detained some suspects involved in the bank ransacking case and the prime suspect will also be captured soon.”

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2017