How a jigsaw puzzle led MP cops to bust ATM bombers

BHOPAL: An empty whiskey bottle flung into a bush and bits of a shattered number plate were the pieces of a puzzle that police put together to nab the ATM bombers in Bundelkhand.


Led by a civil engineer and an IAS aspirant, the gang blew up at least seven ATMs, looting over Rs 48 lakh in just a year. Police in four districts were trying to identify the gang since June 2019, but without luck.

Prolonged analysis of call data, hundreds of hours of CCTV footage , internet packet data records and even tower dump-data searches had failed to yield a clue.

Finally, a discarded whiskey bottle uncorked the case.

“The crime was cracked in a most fascinating way. Our team carried out a tremendous and laborious investigation to get these bombers behind the bars,” said DGP Vivek Johri, praising Sagar IG Anil Sharma, the SIT led by AIG Vivek Raj, and SPs of Panna and Damoh districts Mayank Awasthi and Hemant Chauhan for their detective work.

The first ATM was hit in Nunsar, Jabalpur, on June 6 last year, followed by half a dozen more in intervals of a couple of months each. Investigators from MP tried everything they could, even scoured Haryana and Rajasthan for evidence and suspects. Mewati gangs of Haryana were also probed but an analysis of the explosives ruled them out. On July 18, the gang hit an ATM in Simeria village of Panna. CCTV cameras could only capture masked individuals before the lenses were spray-painted black.

When field intelligence was activated, a villager informed police that he had seen a bottle of liquor near a farm, and it appeared to have been left there on the night of the ATM robbery.

Investigators rushed to the spot and found the bottle before ragpickers spotted it. The cops’ keen eyes noticed a small plastic fragment, which they picked up on a hunch. A while later, another was found.

Realising the fragments could be part of a number plate, police went over 5km of road and roadside with a toothcomb. Locals also joined the search. “It took nearly a day to collect the bits and pieces,” said a police officer. Putting them together was just like solving a jigsaw puzzle, but police a part of the plate was still missing. They had MP21 blank-6933.

All possible combinations were tried out to fill in the blank and dogged hours later, the right combo for the motorcycle was found: MP21MJ 6933.

The owner turned out to be Abhishek Thakur, a resident of Damoh. When he was picked up, he said he had sold it to Jageshwar alias Jaggi Patel of Damoh’s Khajri village two months earlier.

Jageshwar was educated enough to know the standard protocols of police investigation, especially mobile and tower data analysis. “This is why his phone number was not found in the tower dumps. He would switch off his phone when they went on a hit,” said an officer.

Police analysed his call records and zeroed in on two suspects --Chhotu and Devendra Patel – whose phones were found close to each of the ATMs bombed. After further investigation, all five gang members were arrested.

Police were surprised when they found that the ATM bombers were led by a civil engineer, 28-year-old Devendra Patel, who had tried to crack UPSC exams twice. He told police that he got his ideas from TV crime series and learnt how to rig a bomb from social media.

Police seized Rs 25.57 lakh in cash, two pistols, eight bullets, gelatin sticks, detonators, a colour printer, three motorcycles, mobile phones and a laptop from the gang.