Hyderabad: Conmen have the courage to approach their victims and commit crimes due to the absence of guards at ATMs. Several cases of people attempting to break open the cash chests of ATM machines have been reported in the city. Though they usually do not succeed in their attempts, they are able to make such attempts because there is no one around. D. Bhaskar Reddy, inspector of Shamirpet, says, “Last month, we nabbed a man who tried to break open an ATM machine in Turkapally which had no security guard.”
The offenders, most of whom are youngsters, usually have masks on while committing the offence to avoid recognition through the CCTV camera footage. They try their luck at breaking open the machine, which would not have been possible had there been a guard present there.
“Security personnel are only deployed to ATM centres that are attached to banks, and not to the ones that are located separately. This is true for government banks as well as private banks,” says B. Prakash, inspector of Ghatkesar. An official from a private bank says that it is not possible for the bank to deploy a security guard to every one of its ATM centres because of the large number of them that exist. “Most of the ATMs in the city are unguarded, which makes them vulnerable. Where kiosks are guarded, there is poor supervision from the banks. Banks depend on us for their safety,” says a senior official from the Cybercrime police.
