Cuttack, March 28: Police busted a gang of ATM thieves active in Odisha and several other states with the arrest of two kingpins from Mewat in Haryana yesterday.

The two arrested have been identified as Md Sahid, 48, and Md Jahid, 25 - both natives of Mewat district in Haryana.

Deputy commissioner of police Sanjeev Arora said the gang had looted an ATM in Cuttack and several other ATMs across the state in October last year. They used to loot the ATMs by breaking them open with the help of gas cutters. The police also said that the gang members used to pull down the shutters of the ATMs to avoid public attention before loot.

Arora said the gang had managed to burgle about Rs 3 crore in cash using the same modus operandi.

During investigation, a joint team of Odisha police and Haryana police have come to know that the gang had looted several ATMs in Bhadrak, Balasore, Soro, Dhenkanal and Bargarh.

"On the night of October 16, the arrested duo - the two main members of the gang - had broke open the SBI ATM on the national highway at Gandarpur in Cuttack by using a gas cutter. They had decamped with about Rs 17 lakh in cash," Arora said.

The police first got clues about the gang while investigating into the ATM loot at Gandarpur within the limits of Chauliaganj police station. The gang members and the vehicle they used in the loot were first seen from the closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) footage of the ATM kiosk and the entry and exit points of the roads connecting the ATM. The investigators found the whereabouts of the gang members upon tracking the car's details by searching the car number.

Yesterday, a joint team of Odisha police and Haryana police raided the Nawali area of Mewat and arrested the duo. The raid is still on to nab four other members of the gang. The four other members are Md Mustaq, Md Farooq, Md Wahid and Md Azad of Mewat.

One revolver with seven live ammunitions, a sedan and a tractor have been recovered from the possession of the duo.

Police suspect that the gang was involved in ATM loots in other areas, such as Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra, as well.