Patna: The mastermind of a daredevil bank heist in Bihar, involving the loot of Rs5.23 million (Dh257,240), has turned out to be a prominent English teacher who used to take classes in several coaching centres in the state.
The 30-year-old mastermind — son of a retired police official — has been identified by the police as Aman Kumar, with many aliases such as Aman Shukla, Satyam and Amit, but most popularly known as “Aman Sir” among his students. He had planned the Rs5.23 million robbery in the Anisabad branch of Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Patna on June 22, police revealed. The bank was close to the coaching centre where he taught students for various competitive examinations.
The mastermind, along with four other accomplices, was arrested on Saturday after 144 hours of investigation involving a large team of 23 policemen. The police also recovered Rs3.31 million in cash, firearms and bikes used in committing the robbery from their possession. All the robbers had gathered at the rented house of the mastermind for a share of the booty, when police raided the place and nabbed five of them.
Police said they were startled to find the involvement of the well-known English tutor in the robbery. He used to take classes at several coaching institutes in Patna and neighbouring Muzaffarpur.
No social media profile
“We got a bit confused as well when he started answering our queries in fluent, chaste English during interrogation, but he was caught finally,” a police official, who was part of the investigation team, said. The police official said the man was so cunning that he neither used his mobile phone at any stage of the planning and execution of the robbery nor did he have any account on any social media platform, such as Facebook or Twitter.
Seeking loans as a decoy
“He had recruited people with no criminal background in his gang and that was why it was difficult for the police to track the robbers,” Patna’s senior superintendent of police Upendra Kumar Sharma said. People in his gang included a black belt karate trainer, a compounder, a mechanic and several unemployed youths with no criminal record.
Police said the mastermind was so crafty that he would always seek loans from his neighbours so that the others would never suspect his financial condition and he would present himself as someone living in penury, although he earned well from his coaching classes. One of his accomplices, Sonelal, a centering mechanic, was no less cunning and had put a concrete plaster on a box containing Rs400,000 that he had received as his share of the cash from the bank robbery.
