An ATM of Punjab National Bank in Modi Nagar area of Ghaziabad got robbed of Rs 64.5 lakhs last Saturday. The activity is suspected of having insider hands too.

Circle officer, Praveen Ranjan Singh said that the prime suspects are four employees of Writer Safeguards, the firm which deposits cash in PNB ATMs.

"The four employees, identified as Shashi Shekhar, Ravi Ranjan, Deepak Tomar and Madan Pal, had deposited Rs.76 lakh at around 7.45 pm on Saturday. By 9.15 pm, about Rs.64.50 lakh was withdrawn from the machine and there was just Rs. 11.50 lakh left," he said.

Out of the two CCTV cameras installed in the ATM, one was found to be non functional. The active camera caught a man entering the ATM in a blanket whose face is however not visible, said Singh.

'The cash depositing security agency staff usually have a twelve-digit password with which they open the ATM cabinet to deposit cash. In this case, the money was not siphoned off by any card but taken out by opening the machine box. No tampering marks were found anywhere else on the machine,' he said.

"Apart from these persons, no one else knew the password. We suspect that either these men have opened the machine themselves or might have given the password to anyone else," he said.