Bhubaneswar: The Nayapalli police seems to have turned a deaf ear to the repeated pleas of a complainant who lost `3.50 lakh near the IRC Village branch of the SBI in January.
The complainant has been running from pillar to post with CCTV footages of the thieves in vain. He even met the Police Commissioner during the weekly grievance meeting held at the headquarters and apprised him about the police inaction.
The complainant, Harihara Sahu, is the owner of Banadurga Enterprises, and is a wholesaler of peanuts and other cereals.
Sahu has a current account at the SBI’s IRC Village branch and regularly visits it. On January 3, he had gone to the bank to encash a cheque for `3.50 lakh given by a buyer. Sahu had kept the bag containing the money in his motorcycle pannier. After keeping the money in his bike he returned to the branch for something. When he returned he realised that the bag with the money was missing and the pannier’s lock broken.
Shocked at losing a big amount, he rushed to the Nayapalli police station and filed a complaint.
But the ordeal he faced at the police station was more difficult to stomach than the shock of losing the money. Even after two months, the police have not managed to nab the culprits. The police retrieved video footage from the CCTVs installed outside the bank a few days after the incident.
Sahu also personally collected the video footage of CCTVs installed inside the bank and handed it over in a pen drive. The CCTV footage clearly showed the suspicious conduct of some unknown persons at the bank.
The group alleged by Sahu as the robbers could be seen in the footage keeping tabs on each and every step of Sahu inside and outside the bank.
But the police told Sahu that images of the culprits were not clear in the footage as the spot where he had parked his bike after going to the bank again was far away from CCTVs.
Police officials told him that they had asked the shop in front of the bank on the other side of the road to provide CCTV footage. However, the shop owner said he did not have the footage as he had deleted it as the incident happened more than a month ago.
Speaking to Orissa POST, Sahu asked whether the cops didn’t know that one is bound to keep CCTV footage for only 30 days.
Meanwhile, Sahu is visiting the Nayapalli police station every day and is forced to go back with empty assurances.
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