Bhubaneswar, Oct. 25: The Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police have beefed up security near banks and jewellery shops in the city after gold items worth Rs 10.36 lakh were looted from two employees of HDFC Bank’s Nayapalli branch yesterday.

The incident occurred when two employees of the bank, V. Nagamani and Uma Das, were going to deliver 350 grams of gold items to a customer in CBI colony around 3.45pm on Monday on the occasion of Dhanteras.

Nagamani had kept the items in her vanity bag and was riding pillion, when a man on another motorcycle snatched the bag from her in front of the bank.

The Nayapalli police said they rushed to the spot after getting information about the incident. They also went through footage from the close circuit television (CCTV) camera at the bank.

However, the deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Nitinjeet Singh, said the bank authorities had not lodged any formal complaint with the police. “We are looking into the matter on our own and investigation is on,” said Singh.

A senior police officer of the Nayapalli police station said they got the information about the snatching incident from an outside source.

The employees who were carrying the gold items complained that one of their colleagues had committed the crime.

“Following their spoken complaint, we even detained the employee in question and questioned him. As the bank authorities did not lodge any complaint we let him go,” said the officer.

“It is the bank’s concern. The bank’s employees have been complaining against one another. We are keeping ourselves away from this matter until they lodge a formal complaint. But we will continue our investigation,” he added.

Though the incident has rocked the city, the bank authorities have preferred not to comment.

Monday’s snatching incident raised some questions about the way banks carry huge amounts of cash and gold items without making any security arrangements or seeking police assistance.

A senior police officer said that after a series of incidents of looting from people coming from and going to the banks in the first half of August, the city police had instructed banks to seek their help when they carried large amounts of cash or any of their customers withdrew a large amount of money.

The looting incident has forced the city police to take extra measures to ensure no more such incidents occur in the city.

Sources said that as police officers from most of the police stations in the city had been deployed for BJP president L.K. Advani’s meeting in Cuttack, patrolling had been affected and the hoodlums had taken advantage of this.

The DCP said patrolling had been intensified all over the city on the occasion of Dhanteras and Diwali.