‘My shout for help was a reflex action’

“Everything happened so instantly. I entered the bank as usual and noticed a deathly silence. It was pitch dark. Then I saw a masked man lying on the sofa. There was no other person in sight,” Kaur told Newsline.

“He caught hold of me and tried to tie my hands. His revolver was pointed towards my head,” she said. “Scared,I screamed,and could see him panic.”

According to Parminder,the robber pulled the trigger accidentally. “I still don’t know whether he pulled the trigger intentionally or it slipped. In my opinion,it slipped off accidentally,because had it been intentional I would have died,” she said,adding that the robbers were surprised by her act.

After being shot at,Kaur was conscious only for a short while. “The other two robbers came rushing and I collapsed,bleeding. My vision blurred as I saw other employees coming upstairs. That’s all I remember,” she said.

“I don’t know where the courage came from. It (raising an alarm) could have cost me my life,but my reflex action was to shout for help,” she added.

Her husband Dr Nirbhai Singh,who works as a medical officer for the State Aids Control Society in Chandigarh,says the bullet caused a fracture in her skull but there was no damage to her brain.

Singh says she is still in a state of shock and thinks the robbers may attack her again since she spoiled their plans. “But all’s well that ends well. We are thankful that she is stable.”

A mother of two children,Parminder is originally from Pune. Daughter of an Army officer,the cashier-cum-clerk has been working in the city since 1989.

She is stable: hospital

An official spokesperson of Fortis Hospital in Mohali said Parminder’s condition was stable. “The CT scan showed depressed fracture in the right parietal bone and a wound over the right parietal bone. There is no bleeding inside the skull. There is no surgical plan to treat the wound,” the spokesperson said.