Plot to rob ATM goes bust with a bang in TN

Would-be robber killed after bomb he was carrying goes off

Around 6.30 on Monday evening,two men on a motorcycle rode up to a teashop in Uthangarai,a small town in Tamil Nadus Krishnagiri district. They bought tea at the shop,located on the main road that leads to the district headquarters of Krishnagiri and onward to Hosur. Suddenly,say eyewitnesses,one of them blew up.

In the panic that followed,the other man disappeared. Teashop owner Kandalakshmi suffered minor injuries.

From the mangled remains of the motorcycle and several other leads emerging subsequently,police have now pieced together details of an ingenious operation to rob a bank ATM nearby a plot that went horribly wrong probably when the would-be bank robber accidentally detonated the bomb he was carrying.

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Police have identified the dead man as T Sakthivel of Padathanurkottai village in Krishnagiri district,a deserter from Armys Corps of Engineers in Arunachal Pradesh. The explosion tore his head off,suggesting he was carrying the bomb in a bag on his shoulder.

Inquiries revealed that the bike had a fake numberplate. We retrieved its chassis and engine numbers from the wreck,and traced it to one C Mathaiyan,who told us that the vehicle was being used by his 23-year-old nephew T Srinivasan,a jawan with the Madras Engineer Group, district SP Abhishek Dixit said.

The Madras Engineer Group is a regiment of the Armys Corps of Engineers. Following initial suspicion about the involvement of Maoists,the police formed four teams of investigators under Dixits supervision.

From Srinivasans home,police recovered books and diagrams about explosives,countrymade bombs,and bombmaking material like slurry gel,gelatin sticks,pellets,detonators,batteries,circuit boards and timers. They also found a secondary school leaving certificate (SSLC),which mentioned his name as Sakthivel. We suspect he forged the Class 12 certificate to get the job with the Army, Dixit said.

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The man who fled from the spot of the blast is J Ramamurthy,18,police said. They said Sakthivel alias Srinivasan returned to Tamil Nadu in January,and along with Ramamurthy and two others G Viji (18) and P Sakthivel (22) planned to rob an ATM when the vehicle carrying currency came to replenish the machine.

They built a bomb that could be detonated by a remote control. The plan,police said,was to create panic by setting off the bomb as the cash was being loaded on to the machine,and in the confusion,snatch the money and run. However,Sakthivel detonated it by accident as he waited near the ATM.

The police have seized a circuit board and detonator wire from a mobile phone repair shop run by Ramamurthy. Viji and P Sakthivel were arrested on Wednesday,Dixit said.