State tops list in bank robberies in South India

Bengaluru: As per a report, tabled by the ministry of finance in the Lok Sabha recently Karnataka state with 179 reported cases occupies the top position in the list of bank robberies in South India since 2013.

Karnataka is followed by Andhra Pradesh with 154 registered bank robbery cases and Tamil Nadu with 130 cases. As many as 27 cases of robberies were reported in Telangana since the time of its formation. Notably, while the number of robbery cases witnessed a downtrend in other parts of Southern India in the years 2017-18 and 2018-19, Karnataka witnessed a rise.

If country-wide statistics are taken into consideration then Bihar tops the list with 434 bank robberies followed by West Bengal with 371 cases.

Meanwhile, Shiva Pratap Shukla, minister of state for finance said that there was no specific data available on ATM theft cases and the data provided by RBI on overall bank thefts includes ATM thefts also. He also dismissed rumours that the government was planning closure of around 2500 ATMs.