Body formed to review bank vaults’ security

The Banking and Financial Institution Division under the Ministry of Finance on Monday formed a six-member committee to review the security measures of the government bank vaults as well as formulating measures to stop further heists. The latest move came following a heist at a Sonali Bank branch at Adamdighi in Bogra from where robbers on Friday took away Tk 32.51 lakh through a 30-feet tunnel from a nearby furniture shop into the vault. In the same fashion, robbers looted Tk 16.4 crore from the bank’s Kishoreganj branch on January 24. The decision to form the committee came from a meeting of the chief executive officers of state-owned banks, including Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali, held at the Ministry of Finance this (Monday) afternoon. Emerging from the meeting, Banking Division Secretary M Aslam Alam told reporters that the committee will be headed by Banking Division additional secretary Amalendu Mukherjee and will include an executive director of Bangladesh Bank and four deputy managing directors from Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks. The committee has been asked to submit its report within two months. M Aslam Alam said that as part of the security measures, people living in the vicinity of the branches of the state-owned banks will have to submit their credentials to the concerned police stations, according to a news agency.