Punjab police offers to train security guards of banks

The Punjab police today offered to train security guards of the banks to prevent robberies, days after armed men looted Rs 1.33 crore cash from a van of a private bank in Banur in Patiala district.
The police also stressed upon holding mock drills at regular intervals to prepare the cash handlers in effectively dealing with loot incidents.
A team of Punjab police led by DIG (Patiala range) Sukhchain Singh Gill, DIG (Rupnagar range) Babu Lal Meena and Mohali SSP Kuldeep Chahal held a meeting with representatives of different banks at Mohali.
The agenda of the meeting was to review the security measures of the banks in the wake of the daring daylight robbery in Patiala district on Tuesday.

Gill said police have asked banks to provide proper training to the security guards deployed with cash vans in order to prevent robberies.
"We told the banks that if they want, we are ready to provide training to their guards," he said.

During the investigation into the Banur robbery case, the police have found that the guards who were there for the van's security had not resisted the armed robbers, Gill said.
At the meeting, the officer expressed satisfaction over the security system being used by a particular bank while transporting cash.
"A bank showed us that they have digital lockers in their cash vans. The lockers open through the help of head office only when the cash reaches its destination," Gill said, adding that CCTVs were also installed in the vans.

Other banks could replicate this model, he said.
Cash handlers of the banks could also be given the contact numbers of police of the area which they are passing through, the DIG said.
Asked about any headway in the Banur robbery case, Gill said police were working on it.
"We are yet to get the GPS logs of the cash van. We even have not got the footage of the CCTV installed in the cash van either.
"We also found that the chain with which cash trunks were tied not very strong," said the officer.
In a daring daylight robbery, armed men looted Rs 1.33 crore from a van belonging to a private bank on a busy highway after firing at its driver and injuring him in Banur near Rajpura town in Patiala district on May 2.

In a yet another bank robbery, six armed men on May 3 looted Rs 10.27 lakh cash from a rural branch of a public sector bank at Sarawan Bodlan village in Muktsar district.