Vijaya Bank officials foils robbery bid in Raver village, shot dead

Two armed robbers shot dead the assistant branch manager of Vijaya Bank at Nimbol village in Raver taluka of Jalgaon district, around 310km from here, on Tuesday afternoon. The incident was a near re-run of the shooting that left an IT engineer dead at the office of Muthoot Finance Company in Nashik city just four days ago.

The criminals fired once at Karan Singh Negi (31), who foiled the robbery attempt and got the duo fleeing for the exit by pressing the burglar alarm. Negi was hit by the bullet in the shoulder and died on the way to hospital following excessive bleeding.

Police said the robbers came to the bank on a motorcycle wearing black helmets. They did not take off their helmets as they entered the bank brandishing revolvers around 2.20pm. One of them fired a bullet at a wall in the bank in an attempt to frighten the five bank employees, including two women.

Bank official foils robbery

 bid in 

Raver village

, killed

Jalgaon superintendent of police Panjabrao Ugle told TOI that one of the robbers tried to overpower Negi at his workstation. “However, Negi immediately bent down and pressed the burglar alarm, which caught the goons off guard. They quickly turned to the exit. When Negi stood up, one of the robbers fired at him. The bullet hit Negi in the right shoulder and he collapsed on the floor,” he said.

Negi, who hails from Himachal Pradesh, was living in a rented house in Nimbol. Police officials commended him for displaying alacrity by pressing the alarm, which prevented the criminals from robbing the bank. Bank officials said the branch manager was out for a meeting when the robbers entered. “It is extremely painful that Negi died in such a gruesome manner,” a senior bank functionary said.

On June 14, IT engineer M Saju Samuel was shot dead when he took on six armed robbers at the office of Muthoot Finance Company in Nashik city. Samuel too had pressed the burglar alarm after the robbers stormed in, which forced them to flee without taking anything.

The Vijaya Bank branch at Nimbol is around 17km from the Madhya Pradesh border. The Jalgaon police enforced nakabandi across Jalgaon district and along the roads leading to the MP border. Ugle said the two robbers spoke in both Marathi and Hindi. The police said they were yet to establish in which direction the robbers had fled. Officials and personnel from the Nimbhora police station, which is 17km away from Nimbol, rushed to the bank around 3pm.

Some villagers told the police that they had seen the two robbers spend time sitting in the compound of an empty house opposite the bank. “They left a water bottle there. They were probably waiting for the right time to enter the bank. There were no customers in the bank when they entered,” a police official said. Meanwhile, the state home department has taken a strong view of the two armed robberies at two financial institutions in North Maharashtra within a span of just five days.

Minister of state for home Deepak Kesarkar said he was upset with the Jalgaon police for the shooting at Vijaya Bank. “After the Nashik shooting incident, the police in all districts in the region should have been on high alert. I will speak to the director general of police on the issue. The police have to be on their toes,” he added.