Bhubaneswar, April 30: Seven persons were arrested last night for involvement in the April 23 incident on NH-5 at Kuakhai river overbridge in which two bank employees were robbed of cash.

The police have seized cash worth Rs 10.15 lakh from the accused, along with three motorcycles and a stolen mobile phone. The cops said they were looking for two others who were absconding.

Sources said that among those arrested is a former bank employee, Lomesh Ghadei, 22. Ghadei, who had been sacked seven months ago by the Bomikhal branch of the private bank, is a native of Nayagarh district and has been staying at Unit IX.

Deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Nitinjeet Singh said Ghadei was well acquainted with the money transfer system of the bank and looting the two bank employees on April 23 was his idea. He had communicated his plan to his friend Nath Nayak, 24, of Kedarpalli slum.

“The bank authorities had been transporting large amounts of cash along same route and at a particular time, which helped the criminals to implement their plan. Besides, the bank authorities were not following police guidelines of having security escorts during the cash transfer. These two factors helped the criminals,” said the DCP.

Nath, who had previous crime records, got the other criminals together. The accused were identified as Deepak Nayak, 20, Santosh Senapati, 25, Ayub Khan, 19, Bhagabat Dalei, 23, and Alok Nayak, 22. They are all petty thieves and one of the absconders was criminal Salim.

Singh said eight persons on four motorcycles had come to commit the crime. A senior police officer said the criminals had first attempted to commit the crime on April 2, but could not. They got lucky only after three attempts.

The officer said that the criminal looted the money at gunpoint when the bank officials crossed Kuakhai river overbridge on their way back to the bank after collecting money from two automobile showrooms at Phulnakhara.

Singh said the bank employees who had been looted had tried to guess the registration number of one of the vehicles used by the criminals. “After several permutations and combinations we came to a vehicle that belonged to Salim. As he was a notorious criminal, we collected his mobile call details and tracked his numbers which led us to arrest the others,” he said.

The police are now searching for the guns that Salim had arranged on rent.