Customer takes away valuables worth Rs2.78cr after bank ‘mistakenly’ breaks open wrong locker

Pune: Sopanbaug's Yash Kapoor (47) was perplexed after he failed to open the locker — held by his family for the past 64 years — despite three-four attempts in the presence of a senior manager on a routine bi-monthly visit to the Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch in Camp around 12.15pm on Sept 6.
Kapoor, a general manager with a food processing firm, left for his nearby office after the bank officials told him that they would get representatives of the locker's manufacturer to open it and the process would take three-four days.To his surprise, the officials told him the same evening to urgently visit them. They told Kapoor that his locker was "mistakenly" broken in a process initiated on behalf of another customer — a 73-year-old former printing press owner from Camp. The latter mistook it for his own locker because of similar reading locker numbers.
Kapoor's locker number was PA 00014. The other customer's locker number was PJ 00014 and it was in the name of his deceased wife, a retired PNB employee.
The bank officials told Kapoor that the elderly customer took away gold and diamond ornaments (totally worth Rs2.66 crore), silver ornaments (worth Rs2.35 lakh) and cash (Rs9.5 lakh) from his locker after it was broken, and a new key was issued to the other customer under the impression that the locker belonged to him. The senior citizen later gave the ornaments to a jeweller in Camp, who got the same melted.
Kapoor reported the matter to the Cantonment police. They conducted a verification and filed a case on Monday night against the bank's senior manager, the jeweller, the other customer and four "unidentified" people related to theft, misappropriation, criminal breach of trust and common intention, among other charges.
The bank's senior manager and the jeweller (43) were arrested on Tuesday. The police produced them before a magisterial court, which ordered their custodial remand till Sept 27. "We haven't yet made any recovery in the case but hope to make progress during the duo's custodial interrogation," senior inspector Girish Digavkar of the Cantonment police said.
"We arrested the bank's senior manager after ascertaining that she took the elderly customer to the locker room and helped him open the locker. The customer, after collecting the ornaments, gave the same to the jeweller. Hence, we arrested the jeweller. The elderly customer, who claims to be suffering from poor memory, told us during his questioning that he collected the ornaments without verifying them and sold them to the jeweller," Digavkar said.
He said, "CCTV footage retrieved from a camera installed in front of the entrance of the locker vault shows the elderly customer and the bank's senior manager entering the vault on three different occasions during the time when the ornaments were taken away."
Kapoor told TOI, "Our family is an old PNB customer. My father, during his posting with the Military Engineering Service's Garrison Engineers, had secured the bank locker in 1960. He passed away in 1980 and the locker was transferred in the name of my mother. After her demise in 2016, the locker was transferred to me. It had some traditional ornaments of my mother and articles of emotional value, like my father's badge and uniform decorations. Since my office is close to the bank, I keep visiting the locker after every two months. During my previous visits, all articles were in place."
He said, "When I was called back by the bank on the evening of Sept 6, I found the bank officials engaged in a vehement argument with an elderly person and another individual, who I was told was a jeweller. The bank officials informed me then that the articles from my locker were taken away by the elderly man. I was left wondering, how can someone else open my locker and take all valuables."
Kapoor said, "My locker is close to the floor of the vault. The elderly person could not have bent down to open my locker. Somebody helped him. I requested the elderly man and the jeweller to return whatever ornaments they could. The elderly man said he cannot recall what all he took and the jeweller said the elderly man had sold the ornaments to him."
A PNB spokesperson told TOI, "An employee of the bank mistakenly triggered the break-open procedure of the locker assigned to Yash Kapoor, which led to this incident. We understand that the articles were taken by another customer, on whose behalf the break-open process was initiated, and the said customer also acknowledged his act. A departmental enquiry has been initiated against the erring bank official. The bank and its employees are fully cooperating with the investigating authorities."
The manager of PNB's branch on MG Road in Camp, Sitaram Badeja, told TOI, "I am not authorised to speak to the media."
The PNB's circle officer, who sits in an upper floor of the same building and did not wish to be named, told TOI, "We have issued a communication to the media in this regard, and I cannot offer any comment now."