Siliguri Metropolitan Police have arrested three persons for their alleged involvement in looting an ATM kiosk in the Eastern Bypass area of Siliguri on July 23.

The police said a gang of five persons, all from Haryana, was involved in the crime. The five were Sajid, Adil Khan, Sajid Kala, Aftab and Ujair Khan, said the law enforcers.

“The police have apprehended Sajid, Adil and Ujair while searches are on to nab the other two,” Rakesh Kumar Singh, the deputy commissioner (east) of the SMP, said here on Saturday.

“On July 24, Sajid and Adil were nabbed with the help of the Delhi police. Ujair, on the other hand, was arrested in the Supaul district of Bihar today (on Friday). He was produced in a court in Jalpaiguri today and has been sent to police custody for eight days. We need to interrogate him to gather more information,” said the police officer.

The duo arrested in Delhi will be brought here on transit remand, he added.

The police said that after the ATM heist on Wednesday early morning, the authorities of the bank concerned had filed a complaint with them. Based on the complaint,
they initiated a probe and started checking all physical and digital evidence of the location.

Initially, the police managed to recover an SUV that was used for the crime, along with a motorbike, a gas cutter, and a container truck with a cylinder.

Singh said that during the investigation, they had come to know that on July 21, Ujair, Adil, and Sajid Kala had reached Siliguri with a container truck.

The following day (July 22), Sajid and Aftab reached here and met at Fulbari in the southern outskirts of the city.

On July 23, they looted the ATM.

“It is suspected that the duo arrested with the help of the Delhi police took a flight after the crime. Our investigation is in progress, and we are now trying to trace the rest of the gang members and how the money was taken from here,” said Singh.

In the police complaint, the bank authorities had said the gang had looted around ₹14 lakh from the kiosk. Out of the looted money, the police have managed to find around ₹9.6 lakh so far, which includes some damaged (burnt) notes, said sources.

Following the incidents of ATM robberies in the city, the police have requested that banks install basic security measures at their ATMs, including alarms and a robust digital monitoring system, as well as the deployment of security guards at the kiosks.

“After the heist of the ATM kiosk in the Eastern Bypass area, it was found during the investigation that there are 48 ATM kiosks under the jurisdiction of Bhaktinagar police station where such basic security arrangements were not in place,” said a police source.