Regent Park: An unguarded ATM near Tollygunge was broken into early on Monday but the thief failed to crack the second of two locks that stood between him and the cash in the vault.

The man in a monkey cap made a quick exit, albeit empty-handed, after he heard footsteps approaching from inside the building in which the State Bank of India ATM is located.

Kallol Das, the owner of the building had been woken up by the noise of "something being hit again and again" around 2.45am. By then, the theft had been foiled by the password-protected lock that is an ATM's last line of defence in the absence of a security guard.

"I woke up with a start.... I immediately went to the terrace to check the source of the sound," recounted Das, who had rented out the front portion of his single-storey house to SBI four years ago.

The ATM at Purba Anandapally is the second one to be targeted by thieves since January. Last month, two intruders were trying to break the vault of an ATM in Patuli a little past midnight when a youth from the neighbourhood entered the kiosk to withdraw cash. He raised an alarm, forcing the robbers to flee.

Based on Das's account of the second incident, the assumption is that the thief inside the SBI kiosk did not have an accomplice waiting outside. "I saw a lean, young man wearing a monkey cap and carrying a backpack walk away swiftly," he said.

Das, who works in a pharmacy, said he found the kiosk with the shutter halfway down and the first lock on the door to the vault broken. "Since the second lock is password protected, he possibly could not do anything to reach the cash."

Das later pulled down the shutters and locked it. In the morning, he reported the robbery attempt to the bank and also called police on the helpline 100.

CCTV footage from the two cameras installed inside the kiosk will be crucial to identifying the thief despite his face being partially masked by the monkey cap. "We are also trying to get footage from street cameras closest to the kiosk," said an officer at Regent Park police station.

Das said he had requested the bank authorities to deploy guards on shift duty at the kiosk. "We have lived here for two decades and never felt unsafe before this incident. I live here with my wife and 18-year-old daughter. They are shaken by what happened and are angry that I stepped out in the middle of the night. They feel something worse might have happened had I walked in on the robber," Das said.