Robbers looted Tk 1.74 crore before the money was to be loaded into automated teller machines (ATM) of Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited in Gazipur yesterday.

The incident took place at Harinhat in Kaliakoir upazila beside the Dhaka-Tangail highway around 2:30am while employees of Money Plant, a security company, were loading money into ATMs at a booth of the bank, police said. 

Law enforcers later recovered two empty trunks used to carry cash by the company staff from Fulbaria of Mymensingh. 

A group of 10-12 robbers entered the booth after the staff of Money Plant loaded 22 lakh into one ATM and were about to load three other ATMs inside the same booth, said Abdul Motaleb Mia, officer-in-charge of Kaliakoir police.

With sticks and sharp weapons, they then injured security guard Liakat and snatched away the trunks carrying the remaining amount from the company staff, he said. 

The OC, however, added that police were skeptical about the role of the seven staff who included two gunmen, as they failed to resist the attack.   

Police picked up all of them for interrogation to know why the gunmen had not fired at the attackers who came to the spot in a pick-up without mask to hide their identities.

Police also suspected that the robbers had been following the staff of the security company for a few days, the OC said, adding that before the robbery, the company staff loaded 18 other ATMs in several DBBL booths in Gazipur. 

Law enforcers got video footage from a CCTV camera inside the booth and were trying to identify the criminals, Abdul said.

Abul Kashem Mohammad Shirin, deputy managing director of DBBL, confirmed the incident and said the company was tasked with carrying the bank's money to load ATMs regularly.  

Lt. Col (retd) Abedin, chief operator of the security company, filed a case with Kaliakoir Police Station in connection with the incident, the OC said.