MUMBAI: You have heard of gangs breaking open the cash safe and looting money from ATM kiosks. But the city police have now found a different type of ATM robbers: they steal the back-up batteries.An arrested gang has owned up to stealing over a 100 batteries from ATM kiosks in Mumbai, Panvel and Thane.A private bank employee lodged a complaint with the Agripada police recently , saying their ATM kiosk was installed along with another bank's in a rented room in a commercial gala near Arthur Road jail . Three unidentified men had stolen 12 back-up batteries from the room. They had cut the CCTV cameras' wire and stolen the cameras as well. Besides, the routers that connected the ATM kiosks to the bank's servers were also stolen. In the FIR, the value of the 12 stolen batteries was described as Rs 1.24 lakh.After investigation, the police arrested Salahuddin Khan, 50, a garage owner, and Jameel Shaikh, 42, and Krishna Patil, 40, both of whom have worked in ATM kiosks as contract labourers for changing back-up batteries and sweeper, respectively."We recovered 53 batteries from the accused and two routers," said an officer. "By cutting the CCTV cameras' wire, the accused thought they could not be identified. However, their faces had been captured before the line was cut, and it helped in identifying the accused and tracing them," he added.During interrogation, the accused admitted they would approach an ATM kiosk in a tempo, posing as employees of the bank, before leaving with the working batteries."We are going to write to the Panvel and Thane police to look out for such cases registered with them so that we can find out the roles of these accused. We are now trying to find out where they would sell these stolen batteries," added the officer.

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