Jharkhand police foiled a daylight heist at a private finance company, killing one person in an encounter and succeeding in nabbing two others on Tuesday morning in the heart of Dhanbad town.

Two of the accused escaped taking advantage of the chaos. According to police, around five persons entered the gold loan branch of Muthoot Finance on Matkuria road, nearly 500 metres from Bank More thana in Dhanbad and barely 1km from the jewellery shop where armed men looted gold ornaments worth Rs 1 crore on Saturday evening.

“According to the statement of the finance company manager Vikram Raj, as soon as the finance office opened at around 9.30am, the armed looters waiting outside entered the office and started roughing up and intimidating the staff to hand them the locker keys. They even attacked the manager with the butt of the pistol several times and threatened a woman staff of sexual assault if they did not hand over the key. They fired in the air to threaten the staff. The office is located on the ground floor of the crowded market and a shopkeeper who heard the shouts from outside informed the police,” a senior police officer said.

As soon as the police team, led by thana in-charge P.K. Singh reached the office, the looters tried to flee and started firing indiscriminately. The police also retaliated and in the process one of the looters was killed. The cops chased and managed to catch hold of two others.

SSP Sanjeev Singh (second from right) and Bank More police station in-charge (extreme right) with the arrested robbers (face covered) during the media conference at Dhanbad on Tuesday. Telegraph photo

However, two escaped taking advantage of the commotion as a large crowd had gathered at the spot. Nearly 20 rounds were fired between the police and the looters during the encounter. Dhanbad SSP Sanjeev Kumar said: “All the miscreants are from different parts of Bihar. We would be able to provide details only after proper interrogation.”

Dhanbad deputy superintendent of police (law and order) Arvind Vinha said the police had recovered three semi-automatic pistols from the looters. “All the criminals are aged between 25 and 30 years. However, the Aadhaar cards they produced are fake. We are trying to ascertain their identity and address. Though one of them claims to be from Bihar and another claims to be from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. They have denied their role in the jewellery shop loot but we are trying to probe their antecedents. All the pistols recovered from them are semi-automatic,” said Vinha said.

The police have seized several fake bike registration numbers from their possession. Police sources claimed that the modus operandi in the jewellery shop loot and the loot bid at the finance company was almost similar and the two who had been arrested had confessed to staying in a rented house in Dhansar where the jewellery shop was located.