It was high-energy drama at the office of a private sector lender in broad daylight on Saturday. Two men barged into the office of Muthoot Finance in the afternoon and fired two rounds.

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The incident took place at the Vasna branch of the finance company, located near Prajapati Garden. 

Two men, one in his 20s and the other in his late 30s, entered the office, which had only two employees at that point of time, with revolvers. One of them went inside the strong room (bank vault) and pointed a revolver at Maulik Patel, an employee. Meanwhile, the other man went to the manager’s cabin and pointed a gun at Narendra Sisodiya, the general manager.

The one standing with Maulik managed to close the windows of the office and stood guard near the door to prevent the entry of customers.

One of the intruders asked Sisodiya (in Hindi) to open the strong room. The latter directed Patel to hand over the keys of the strong room to the duo.   

At that time, a customer, Sangeeta Jani, tried to walk in. A resident of Swaminarayan apartment in Vasna and also an eyewitness to the incident, Jani was dragged on to the floor as soon as she entered the office and was slapped so hard that she could not hear anything temporarily.

Meanwhile, Patel, who had gone inside to get the strong room keys, saw a siren bell on the wall. Sensing an opportunity to alert people outside, he rang the siren ball. On hearing the alarm, the duo started firing. One of them fired into the strong room and the other fired at Sisodiya, missing him by a whisker. They ran away, leaving behind an.8mm and .9mm pistol.

Soon, Vejalpur police, FSL team, dog squad, crime branch officials, finger print experts as well as and top police officials including Sector-I joint commissioner of police (JCP) Ajay Tomar and Zone-I deputy commissioner of police (DCP) V Chandrasekhar reached the spot and took stock of the situation. Police said that all the checkpoints across the city and state were sealed.

Chandrasekhar told DNA, “A case of attempt to robbery has been lodged at Vejalpur police. According to the modus operandi employed by the duo, they seem to be members of a professional gang. We will check CCTV footage of the incident and conduct inquiry based on it.”

In his complaint, Maulik Patel told police, “One was them was a strong man sporting a white chequered shirt with a biscuit-coloured pant. He covered his face with a helmet. And the other was a medium-built person donning a maroon and white-coloured T-Shirt and blue jeans. He had covered his face with a white handkerchief and sported a cap.”