INDORE: A daring bank theft without much ado in Jawad area of Neemuch district in Madhya Pradesh has not only left everyone stunned but made a mockery of the foolproofness of the security systems. All the staff of the cooperative bank in this town were caught napping by this bizarre act of theft when a 10-year-old boy coolly walked in and decamped with Rs 10 lakh in just about 30 seconds. Ironically, no one from the bank staff noticed him stealing the money right from the cashier’s desk in his absence there.

The boy was seen in the CCTV camera footage stepping inside the bank at around 11 am and heading straight to the cashier’s enclosure. There were customers waiting in the queue on the other side but none had an inkling of the fact that money is being stolen right in their presence. The boy is short-statured and that became an advantage as he was not visible beyond the desk on the counter.

As the visuals showed, the minor quickly picked up two wads of Rs 500 notes and put them in a bad before walking out without being stopped. Their entire stealing act was completed astonishingly in 30 seconds. Soon after exiting the cashier’s counter, the minor began running towards the exit gate thus alerting everyone about something terribly wrong has happened. A security guard chased the boy but in vain.

When the police teams screened the CCTV footage, their found out that the boy was not along and in fact he was being guided by a youth in his 20s who loitered around inside the bank for close to half an hour. He just waited for the most opportune moment and as soon as he saw the cashier get up and go into another room, he signaled to the boy who was waiting outside.

“The minor was short, so people standing in front of the cash counter couldn’t see him stealing the money,” Neemuch SP Manoj Rai was quoted as saying by the Times of India. The bank security guard tried to chase them but they ran in two different directions and fled. The police suspect that this is the work of a gang that might have conducted a recce of the bank for sometime and used the minor as their best option to steal the money.