Berhampur, Aug. 8: Six students of a private residential college here were arrested allegedly for trying to loot four ATMs on Sunday night.

Berhampur superintendent of police Pratik Mahanty today said all the six students were studying Plus Two in Om Bhurbhuba Swaha Residential College here and were staying at a hostel in Siddhartha Nagar Bank Colony. All of them were aged between 14 and 16.

“They used to go out of the hostel through the windows of their room almost every night after the hostel warden switched off lights. The students, who are from Ganjam, Rayagada and Koraput districts, used to roam in the streets during the night and enter their hostel through the windows early morning,” said a source in the police.

“We nabbed these students after seeing CCTV footages of various ATMs. We produced all these six students before the Juvenile Justice Board,” said the police superintendent.

These students had allegedly attempted to loot ATMs of State Bank of India at Chandrama Sahi and Hillpatna, of Dena Bank near St Vincent’s Convent School and of ICICI Bank at New Bus Stand on Sunday night. Though they could not take away any cash, they were able to damage the machines.

They uprooted the front portion of the SBI ATM at Chandrama Sahi and torched it after pouring petrol in order to open its safe box. They had also unscrewed another SBI ATM at Hillpatna. To avoid being detected, they had put a piece of cloth on the CCTV camera installed inside the ATM kiosk at Hillpatna.

They had also uprooted the front portion of the Dena Bank ATM and tried to loot the cash stored in it. After receiving complaints, the police started investigation by pressing its scientific team into service at all these three ATMs and caught the students.