Armed criminals storm three banks in less than 16 hours

Armed robbers entered the premises of branches of Sonali Bank and Krishi Bank in Bandarban's Thanchi upazila today and looted more than Tk 20 lakh around noon today, less than 16 hours after another bank robbery in the district's Ruma upazila. 

Today's incident took place in the upazila's Thanchi Bazar area around 12:30pm, Thanchi Upazila Nirbahi Officer Mohammad Mamun told our Bandarban correspondent. 

The robbers left the banks, situated close to each other, and the area less than 10 minutes after they stormed the branches, witnesses said. 

Once inside the banks, the robbers seized the weapons of the security personnel and broke all the CCTV cameras, people who were inside the bank said. They then took cash from the counters and from the customers who had just made withdrawals from their accounts . 

They took around Tk 15 lakh from the Sonali Bank branch, and around Tk 5-7 lakh from Krishi Bank, the UNO said around 2:00pm. 

The robbers fired rounds inside the branches, the witnesses said. 

Around 50-60 men dressed in camouflage came to the area around 11:30am, and started taking mobile phones of the people present there, said locals. 

Then around 12:30pm, 15-20 of the armed men entered each bank branch, while 15-20 more were positioned at the nearby Sangu Bridge. All of them then left the area less than 10 minutes after the robbers entered the banks. 

Around 9:00pm last night, armed criminals stormed Bandarban's Ruma upazila parishad complex, disarmed security personnel and took their firearms, robbed the the Sonali Bank branch there, and abducted bank manager Nezam Uddin.