Jamshedpur/ Ranchi, May 21: Unidentified men, suspected to be Maoists, opened fire and robbed a bulletproof van of Rs 5.5 crore cash and a kg of gold belonging to a bank at Salgadi on NH-33, 65km from Jamshedpur.

The cash, belonging to two branches of ICIC Bank in Jamshedpur, was being taken to the bank’s currency chest at Doranda in Ranchi in a routine operation carried out by Mumbai-based Tops Security Agency to ex- change soiled currency notes with fresh ones for use in ATMs.

In Ranchi, police spokesperson Raj Kumar Mallick confirmed the incident saying it was the handiwork of Naxalites led by Kundan Pahan.

According to police sources, a gang of nine men on three motorbikes swooped in on the van which the driver had halted — apparently to go to the toilet — near a dhaba at Salgadi village under Tamar police station.

With the driver gone, there were five others in the van including four security guards and a bank employee.

All of them fled on seeing the armed men who opened fire — at least 15 rounds — and moved the vehicle to the nearby bushes and emptied the cash and gold from an in-built chest inside the van.

By then the police at Tamar got wind of the incident. A team rushed to the site where they were greeted with gunfire.

More than 300 rounds were fired from both sides and three policemen were injured.

But the cash could not be saved.

Mallick pointed out that ICICI Bank had not taken the help of police as the security agency vehicles they use are usually enabled with GPS (global positioning system) that facilitates remote locking of the cash chest inside.

But, the service was withdrawn from the vehicle being used today due to non-payment of service fees, he revealed.

Deputy superintendent of police (Jamshedpur) Madhusudan Bari visited the ICICI Bank’s main branch in Bistupur and questioned senior officials including its head Amit Gupta.

Bari said the van first loaded Rs 3.72 crore and 1.20gm of gold from there at 11.10 am. It picked up the rest of the money from the bank’s Sakchi branch.

The robbery occurred around 12.30pm, he said, adding the modus operandi suggested the criminals had prior information.

“I had come to question the local head of ICICI Bank to know whether they had transit insurance and other related matters,” the DSP said.

According to Gupta, the bank had assigned several cash management services to transport at least twice a week. It has transit insurance, too.

“Which CMS company would carry cash and at what time is kept top secret. It is so confidential that even I, being the head of the organisation here, am unaware when exactly the van would come or go,” Gupta said.