Fear Factor at ATMs

It has been nearly a month since a grainy video spooked TV news viewers through its raw Hitchcockian brutality.  A woman enters an ATM kiosk to draw money. A man follows her. Seemed like a regular office goer, clad in a striped shirt and had a shoulder bag. But his sinister intentions become immediately apparent after he brings down the shutter in a jiffy. He demands money from her, but she refuses. Out from his shoulder bag, which many of us may use to carry files and lunch box, comes a large machete and a gun. After assaulting the woman he leaves with cash and a mobile phone.

Barring the minor success of tracking down the stolen mobile phone in Anantapur district, the ATM assailant is proving too smart for the men in khaki. His finger prints don't match with police records, thus showing he is either a first time offender or has come from some other state.

The assailant has also cleverly darted the trap the modern day criminals fall into - making calls on cell phones. Looks like the guy might be a lone ranger. For police it leaves only human intelligence or good old khabari as an option to hunt him down.

The police carried out a reality check of city ATMs and many of them were shuttered due to lack of security measures. The bank where this incident happened had no security guard and even the shutter was not latched on top, making the job of the assailant all the more easy.

To the general public it only meant lots of inconvenience, as they had long unlearned the habit of patiently queuing up at bank cash counters. Later many of them were restored once security guards were deployed, though many others measures suggested by the police remain unfulfilled.

Banks, which had already got many wake up calls, after earlier incidents of burglars decamping with ATM machines,  are still dragging their feet. They claim they will have to call for tenders and seek approvals from their corporate office to implement some of the proposed security measures. Slogans like 'Think global, act local' apparently has little to do with customer's safety!

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