Patna, May 25: After incidents of loot rocked the capital recently, police have drawn up a strategy to tackle such crime. A special squad, whose main duty will be to move around different banks in every two to three day’s intervals and look out for suspicious people, will be formed. They would be patrolling in civil clothes.

Once caught, the police will be questioning them and they would be taken into custody if the police find anything suspicious. A background check, too, would be done on those detained.

Patna City superintendent of police (SP) Shivdeep Lande told The Telegraph the move was aimed to bring down incidents of loot. On Tuesday, a couple were robbed of Rs 1.25 lakh after they had withdrawn the amount from the Kadamkuan branch of the Punjab National Bank. The loot took place at PNT Colony under the Kotwali police station and the police said the criminals were following the couple from the bank.

“Twelve policemen will be part of the squad. The team will not move around everyday and they would be conducting sudden inspections. While eight policemen will be permanent, four armed men, would be chosen from respective police stations under which the team is carrying out patrolling. Mostly, criminals move along the bank watching the customers. As a result, they know which person has money with them when they are moving out of the bank. The idea is to put a full stop to this,” the officer said.

Earlier last month, Rs 2 lakh was snatched from a couple. Two men on bike snatched it in front of Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar’s residence. This couple, too, had withdrawn money from a bank. “CCTV cameras of many banks do not work. The police checked the CCTV cameras of Punjab National Bank at Kadamkuan after yesterday’s incident and found them not working. There is a chance that some bank employees are in connivance with criminals and pass on information to them about potential targets,” Lande added.

“The Quick Mobile, or policemen on motor bikes, have been assigned the responsibility to patrol different areas to control cases of snatching. Until now, only two chain snatchers have been caught. The Quick Mobile policemen will have to ensure the arrest of a snatcher within seven days. If this doesn’t happen, they should consider themselves suspended,” Lande said.

Meanwhile, gross anomalies have been found at the Kotwali police station during an inspection a couple of days back and 48 of the 49 policemen at the station could be suspended.