Sambalpur, Nov. 17: Police today arrested two persons in connection with a robbery from the Bank of India's Beheramal branch in Jharsuguda town in May and produced them before court.

The duo allegedly robbed Rs 86 lakh in cash from the bank after locking up the bank employees on May 5.

The cops are yet to recover the cash.

"We have seized a country-made pistol and a live round from them and have started efforts to recover the loot," said sub-divisional police officer B.K. Nanda.

The accused were identified as Ramashis Choudhury, 30, from Amas in Gaya district and Swet Kumar Choudhury, 27, from Nizamuddinpur in Siwan district, both in Bihar. The police said the accused had been arrested from Rourkela.

In May, a gang of armed robbers entered the bank in the afternoon. They broke the bank security guard's gun and intimidated the bank staff and customers.

They took all of them to a room and asked them to sit on the floor. The robbers took away their mobile phones and asked the branch manager to hand over the key to the strong room.

They took out cash from the strong room, put it in a bag and fled. They also broke the CCTV cameras installed in the bank and took away the hard disk before leaving.

The police said the arrested duo were members of an interstate bank robbery gang, which had been involved in similar cases in Odisha, Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

The leader of the gang is still absconding. The matter is being investigated, police said.

Robbers in truck

Police on Thursday said the gang involved in a robbery at the UCO Bank, Rajmahal branch, had travelled from Patna to Bhubaneswar in a truck. The gang had bought the two motorcycles on the truck that were used in the robbery. The information was revealed by two gang members - Vijay Saha, 52, and Bhagawat Thakur, 35, - who were nabbed from Bihar on Tuesday.