In a peculiar turn of events, a bank in Andhra's Anantapur district was found handcuffed on Tuesday morning by employees of the branch in Yadiki town. After a call to the police, things became clearer. Late on Tuesday night, patrolling officers saw the main door and windows of the Syndicate Bank branch open, and the lights turned on.
Suspecting it to be a robbery, they positioned themselves outside to 'nab' the robbers. However, when no one stepped out, the police walked in to find that the bank was empty.
“As a part of night patrolling, we check all the banks and ATMs for security. When we went to the Syndicate Bank branch around 1.30 am (on Tuesday), we found the main door open and the lights on. After waiting for around 20 minutes for the robbers to make a move, we realised that the bank staff forgot to switch off the lights and lock the door,” Yadiki police sub-inspector Kathi Srinivasulu, told Mumbai Mirror.
The sub-inspector said that he tried contacting the bank manager several times but failed to reach him, and decided to lock the door.
As they could not find a lock late at night, they handcuffed the door to keep the bank safe.
“The bank staff failed to lock the main door. It was due to negligence. Since we cannot keep a guard outside the bank till the branch reopens in the morning, we used the handcuffs to lock the door,” the sub inspector told Times of India.
The bank staff realised the mistake and came to know about the incident only at around 8 am when they came to the work on Tuesday. After finding the door handcuffed, the staff contacted the police who later unlocked the handcuffs. The branch manager rushed to the police station after the staff informed him about the incident where he told them that he went to the district headquarters in Anantapur for official work on Monday and directly went home late in the night after work.
After an inquiry, the police stated that a field staffer was working in the office till 10 pm and forgot to lock the door while leaving.