LARKANA, Feb 19: Nine persons, including eight bank employees, were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the missing gold worth over Rs7 million from 51 lockers of the Naudero branch of the National Bank of Pakistan.

The police, while confirming the news of arrests, said that the arrests were made after the bank manager, Ghulam Abbas Sangi, lodged an FIR in this connection with the Naudero police station.

Those, who have been arrested, include Mohammed Akram Khuhro, custodian of lockers, Zahid Hussain Bhutto, operations manager and joint custodian of lockers, Abdul Karim Gopang, Rafique Ahmed Dayo, Abdul Wahid Kalhoro (guards), Naveed Ahmed Bhutto, Bashir Ahmed Bhutto, Mohammed Umar Mirani and Nazeer Ahmed Mirani.

The bank’s regional business chief of Larkana, Dhani Bakhsh Baloch said that the keeper of a warehouse, Nisar Ahmed Mirani, a warehouse keeper, who had also been nominated in the FIR, was absconding.

Police confirmed the bank official’s statement, saying that several police parties had been dispatched to Khairpur, Madeji and Shikarpur to arrest the accused, who is absconding in the case.

According to the FIR, lodged by the bank’s manager, gold, contained in 51 of the bank’s lockers, was found to be missing during a routine physical examination.

The physical examination of the locker, he stated in the FIR, was conducted along with the custodian and joint custodian of the lockers.

However, the regional business chief of the NBP told Dawn on Wednesday that 17 of the lockers were completely empty while others had been filled with stones and pieces of bricks.

The manager, in the FIR stated that 9,131 grammes of gold, valued at around seven million rupees, had been stolen from the lockers.

Sources in the bank told this correspondent that people had obtained loans against the gold contained in the lockers.

Police raided the house of Nisar Ahmed Mirani, who is missing along with his entire family.

Bank officials suspect that Mr Mirani had somehow produced a duplicate key. But how he had obtained a duplicate remained unknown.

Police, in the meantime, was pointing fingers at certain individuals, whose exact identities remained unknown, for having masterminded the plan.

The FIR has been registered under section 380, 409, 34 and 120-B with the Naudero police, while the investigation wing of the police is probing into the incident.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Ibrahim Khuhro, Zahid Hussain Bhutto and Abdul Karim Gopang have been suspended from their services, said the bank’s regional business chief, Dhani Bakhsh Baloch.

It was also learnt that the police had severely beaten up the persons arrested in connection with the case.