New Delhi -
Three men suspected of robbing a bank by digging a 25m tunnel under its vault have been arrested in northern India, police said on Friday.
The robbery was discovered on Monday. The thieves broke into 86 of the 360 lockers in the strong room of the bank in Gohana town in the northern state of Haryana.
The police recovered 39kg of mostly gold ornaments and 60 000 rupees in cash the suspects had hidden in a nearby brick kiln, superintendent Arun Nehra said.
The arrested are all men aged between 25 and 30, Nehra said.
One is a pathology laboratory technician while the other two are farmers.
A search is on for a fourth suspect, a property dealer, Nehra said.
The police also suspect an official of the bank may have been involved and are questioning six people in connection with the case.
The man who owned the abandoned building from which the tunnel was dug was initially questioned, but then went missing. He was later found dead in his car on a nearby highway and is suspected of committing suicide, Nehra said.
“We traced the others from the call records of his mobile phone,” Nehra said.
“He seems to have been the mastermind behind the robbery.”
The men during questioning said they had planned the heist and dug the tunnel over 40 days, police said.
It took them over six hours to empty out the vaults in the strong room. - Sapa-dpa