Bangalore's ATM Attack Triggers Safety Measures Across India

As the shocking episode of the IT city continued to grab media attention with the CCTV footage of the gory act being beamed, Home Minister KJ George held a high-level meeting to discuss measures to curb such incidents. George said more than 600 of the total 2,580 ATMs in the city have no security guards. "We want them to deploy security guards immediately or close down the things until suitable arrangements have been made... the police commissioner will take appropriate action," he said.

CCTV seems to be the only and the most effective safety measure that's common to all the ATMs in the country. It is placed either in the ceiling or inside the machine itself. But, sometimes the camera install is hardly visible.

As stated by some experts, increasing instances of thefts and assaults at ATMs are being reported in states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. In light of Bangalore's attack, the Karnataka home minister has already called for a shutdown of all ATMs that do not have security personnel or guards be deployed at each of the 9700 ATMs in the state. But for banks the second option works out to a monthly outgo of 29 crore. If every ATM in the country has to be manned, the banking sector will have to shell out more than 365 crore a month.

(With agency inputs)

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