Tk 1cr looted from bank staff

Armed robbers snatched in broad daylight Tk 1 crore from a private car that was carrying the money from Brac Bank’s Sylhet city branch at Zindabazar to Bishwanath branch yesterday.At about 3:15pm, the robbers waylaid the car near Lalabazar at Dakkhin Surma upazila on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway and took away the money at gunpoint, said Mohammad Ayub, additional deputy commissioner of Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP).Apart from the driver, only Gaohar Chowdhury, assistant manager of the bank’s Bishwanath branch, was in the car, said Officer-in-Charge Ranjan Samonta of Dakkhin Surma Police Station.Zishan Koushik, the bank’s head of communications and services, told this correspondent that the bank official had collected the money from the city’s Dakkhin Surma and Bandarbazar branches as usual.Zishan mentioned that one of the attackers first hit the driver in the head with his pistol and grabbed the car keys.Police were informed that the money would be sent to Bishwanath, he said, adding, however, that the branches carry money without any additional security.However, SMP Additional Commissioner SM Rokon Uddin said the bank had not informed the police about the matter.SMP Deputy Commissioner Mushfiqur Rahman said it was mysterious that the bank official had taken neither police nor the bank’s own security with him when carrying such a big amount of money.Police were interrogating the bank official and the driver while preparations for filing a case were under way, he added.