A policeman with sniffer dog Shyam at the bank; (above) police try to disperse the crowd outside the bank. Pictures by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar, May 16: The chief manager of the State Bank of India here today received two calls saying that a powerful bomb would go off if Rs 50 lakh was not arranged immediately by the authorities.

The first call had come on the personal cellphone of chief manager Samorendranath Chanda at 11.45am during peak banking hours. More than 500 people were at the three-storied bank at that time.

The caller, suspected to be a man, however, did not say how the money was to be handed over.

“He said he would call up later to say how the payment was to be made. We were told not to call police,” said Chanda, who had disconnected the line quickly. Chanda said he had called up the Alipurduar police station, 200 metres away, on the “hotline” immediately. A hotline has a separate receiver and the manager has to only lift it up to inform the police station that something was wrong.

“You don’t even have to dial. If you pick up the receiver, the call or an alert goes to the nearest police station, in this case, Alipurduar police station,” said a bank official.

The second call came a little before noon. “The first time only I had asked the caller to identify himself. This time, he rebuked me for not taking him seriously and said he was speaking on behalf of an organisation or Sangathan,” said Chanda, who refused to disclose the number from which the call had come. “He didn’t name the Sangathan.”

For more than three hours banking services were completely disrupted as the police first went around with metal detectors followed by a sniffer dog almost two and a half hours later.

All customers were told to vacate the bank premises in the College Halt area, a busy part of the town. The bank caters for many establishments like the railways, schools, government offices and even tea gardens besides private individuals.

Additional superintendent of police Anup Jaiswal and subdivisional police officer David Lepcha also visited the bank.

With the help of metal detector, the police checked all the three floors of the bank building but did not find anything suspicious. The railways’ dog squad from Alipurduar Junction arrived around 2.30pm. The delay was because the Labrador was away in Kokrajhar, Assam.

Half an hour later, the police declared the bank safe and services resumed.

Recounting the chain of events, an employee said: “When our manager told us to vacate the building, we somehow threw the money in the safe, locked it and hurried out. At that time, there were at least 500 persons in the bank.”

ASP Jaiswal said the number from which the phone had come was being traced. “We are keeping a close watch on the situation.”

Last month, a headmaster of a high school was abducted from a spot 15km from the bank. It is not known whether a ransom of Rs 50 lakh demanded by the abductors had been paid or not, but he was released the next day.