Mandya: In a reported incident, a group of miscreants, posing as customers, stole Rs.15 lakh cash   from SBI Bank at Mandya this morning.

Soon as the SBI Bank (Agricultural Development Branch) at Bamdigowda Layout, opened at about 10 am, a group of miscreants, who are said to be 8 to 10 in number, entered the Bank posing as customers and engaged almost every staff of the Bank into conversation over several Bank transaction issues, with some of them speaking in Hindi and the rest in Kannada.

Even as a member of the group of miscreants engaged the Bank Cashier Geethanjali and also made her come out of the cash counter under some pretext, in a bid to divert her attention, another member crawled into the cash counter and decamped with Rs.15 lakh cash kept in the counter, even as Geethanjali continued to talk with the ‘new customer’!

Geethanjali, who returned to the cash counter after ending the conversation, found Rs.15 lakh missing from the counter. But by that time, the ‘new customer’ whom Geethanjali had spoken to before and all other ‘new customers’ who had entered the Bank posing as customers, had vanished from the place.

Soon, cashier Geethanjali informed the matter to Bank Manager Sadananda Kamath who immediately lodged a complaint at Mandya West Police Station.

ASP Lavanya, CPI Santosh and other Police personnel visited the Bank and conducted mahazar.

The Police have retrieved footages of CCTV cameras installed in the Bank, which are said to have captured the images of the gang members.