KARACHI: Four robbers, including one wearing burqa, looted a private bank on the main university road in Gulistan-iJauhar Block-11 on Monday afternoon.

The authorities have detained two armed bank guards for questioning as they did not put up anyresistance, according to officials.

Four gunmen stormed the Habib Bank Ltd branch, snatched a repeater and a pistol from the two guards posted there and took away Rs460,000 from its cash counter.

Before neeing,the suspects travelling in a car also took away the weapons of the guards, said Gulshan SP Dr Fahad Ahmed.

The officer believed that the bank management did not followthe standard operating procedure of the State Bank of Pakistan as no bunker was constructed inside the bank.

Both guards, belonging to Metro Security Company, were not trained. One guard, who had a repeater, told the police that he did not know how to operate the gun.

The Gulshan SP said a CCTV footage obtained from the bank showed that initially one suspectwearing burqa entered the bank at around 3:15pm. He was followe d by three other suspects, including one wearing mask, while faces of the two others were visible and they could be identified, he added.

The fresh bank robbery came as seventh of the year, which investigators believed was quite different from the previous ones, suggesting involvement of new men in the business. Wearing burqa by onlyone of the bandits raised several questions which were being analysed to trace the suspects.

`It simply means that only one of them was covering his identity, said SSP Farooq Awan of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) tasked with investigation into bank robberies and terrorism incidents.

`There must be reasons for that particular move and we are moving fast to reach a conclusion. The fresh incident doesn`t seem the job of professional bank robbers. They are definitely criminals, but not like those of the past when the banks were targeted by particular groups,` he said.

He said the gangs, which were involved in the past bank robberies, had mostly been busted and a majority of their members had been arrested as the SIU had resolved all the previous six cases of bank heists this year.

Investigations into those cases, he said, led to the arrest of more than 15 suspects and killing of over a dozen in encounters with police during the past six months.

`Due to proactive policing and investigations into the bank robberies, you have witnessed such a sharp decline in such incidents. Before the fresh one, we reported the last bank robbery in May 2016, which has been resolved and suspects have been arrested,` added SSP Awan.

A total of 15 bank robberies were reported in 2015. The authorities claim that proactive policing and the ongoing Rangers-led operations have achieved a major success in this particular area as well, but the off and on strike by bandits remains a challenge for the investigators.

In 2014, some 24 banks were robbed by armed bandits while 28 banks met the same f ate in 2013, 23 in 2012, 19 in 2011, 20 in 2010 and fewer than 20 in 2009. Police also accused the managements of banks and private security companies of not meeting the required standards of the security.

`We can only prevent it through joint efforts, but banks and Snancial institutions are least bothered for security of their own assets, said the SIU officer. `You hardly find any security bunkers inside banks to provide a secured place to guards.

Secondly, the low level of training of our private guards also make banks an easy target for robbers,` he said.