Police patrol to keep tab on ATMs in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: With frequent incidents of burglaries at Automated Teller Machine (ATM) kiosks reported across the tri-commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda, the police now mandated its patrolling personnel to check the centres during nights. The night officers of the police stations and the local police patrolling teams blue colts and patrol cars visit the ATM […]

Hyderabad: With frequent incidents of burglaries at Automated Teller Machine (ATM) kiosks reported across the tri-commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda, the police now mandated its patrolling personnel to check the centres during nights.

The night officers of the police stations and the local police patrolling teams blue colts and patrol cars visit the ATM centres during late nights and check the machines now.

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“The local police patrol or blue colt’s personnel will visit the ATMs during the night and check if any mischief is done. Similarly, they also check the vicinity of the ATM centre for any equipment or tools usually hidden by the burglars to use it for breaking the machine. The night officer will be compulsorily visiting the ATMs prone to burglary, usually those located on isolated stretches,” said Bollaram Inspector, P Sreedhar.

The initiative is being taken up by the police following incidents of burglaries at the ATM centers by property offenders mainly on city outskirts where there is little public movement during late nights. “Usually the crimes take place after 2 am, so the patrolling staff makes at least two visits to the ATM centres while patrolling the area every night. Similarly, our crime teams’ personnel in plain clothes also make surprise visits to the ATM centres disguised as common public,” said Jawaharnagar Inspector K Chandrasekhar.

“On every visit, the police personnel click a picture and put in the police station Whatsapp group and simultaneously record it in their patrolling/ beat monitoring internal app,” said Rajendranagar Inspector, K Kanakaiah.

The police had held several meetings with the managements of various banks asking them to arrange a security guard at the ATM centre. Nevertheless, many did not oblige to their advice citing huge expenditure incurred on deploying a security guard instead the banks installed surveillance cameras.

“Almost all private banks maintain a security system wherein an alarm goes off whenever any attempt is made to break the machine. Simultaneously the head office security control room also gets an alert. However, such measures are missing at the public sector bank ATMs,” complained a police official.

The ATMs attract also inter-State gangs from as far as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. “Nabbing the offenders is a big task many a time and resources are to be spent to identify, track and arrest them,” said another police official.

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