UPDATE: BOC branch in Chennai attacked by unknown group
February 7, 2013 07:57 pm
A group
of men attacked the Bank of Ceylon branch in Egmore on Thursday afternoon,
causing injuries to some employees and police personnel on duty.
Police
suspect the attack was in protest against the visit of Sri Lankan President
Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday.
Around
1.30 p.m., 12 men covering their faces with pieces of cloth, arrived in
autorickshaws and motorcycles at Jarret Gardens 2nd Avenue, Casa Major Road,
where the bank in located in a two-storey building, police said.
They
entered the premises by pushing the two policemen on duty and damaged the
guardroom and the bank’s signboard on the ground floor. “They barged into the
first floor office and attacked bank clerk Maria Rajesh and trainee Janakan, a
city college student, with clubs and shards of glass. The group shouted slogans
against Mr. Rajapaksa and damaged the cubicles. They threw whatever objects
they could lay their hands on at glass partitions and damaged a wall clock,”
said an investigating officer.
The
attack lasted only a couple of minutes. Eight CCTV cameras installed at
different spots in the branch recorded the incidents from 1.30 p.m. to 1.32
p.m. The group left after injuring the employees and policemen. The men did not
go to the top floor, where cash was kept. Rajesh and Janakan were taken to the
Government Kilpauk hospital. Their condition was stable. Janakan suffered cut
injuries on his back.
According
to a senior police official, the attackers have been indentified as members of
an outfit. A hunt is on to apprehend them. Additional police security has been
provided for the bank branch and also to the office of the Sri Lankan Deputy
High Commissioner in Nungambakkam, sources added.
In the
morning, police arrested a 15-member group which tried to lock the TTD
information centre on Venkatanarayana Road in T Nagar in protest against the
visit of Mr. Rajapaksa to Tirupati. They were later released on bail. (TheHindu)
