SWABI, Nov 8: Police arrested a sweeper of a local branch of National Bank of Pakistan and two goldsmiths here on Friday on the charges of stealing gold worth Rs25 million from the bank over last seven months, official sources said.

They said that the three accused had been shifted to an undisclosed location for interrogation. It has been learnt that some more people were expected to be included in the investigation process soon.

The incident occurred in the jurisdiction of Zaida police station where 62 bags of gold were stolen from the NBP, Tandkohi branch, said the sources. It has been learnt that there were total 157 bags deposited by different people in the bank.

They said that it was a big surprise for the bank manager himself when he found the gold jewellery missing and informed the police.

Talking to media persons, district police officer Sajjad Khan hoped that the stolen gold would be recovered. He said that following information the police arrested the bank sweeper, Sial Mohammad, who belongs to Tandkohl village. During interrogation, the sweeper also disclosed names of two goldsmiths who were also nabbed by police immediately.

One of them Mohammad Ashiq hails from Totali village of Buner district and at present he works in Topi tehsil main bazaar. The other arrested goldsmith has been identified as Yasir Khan of Zaida city.

`We have arrested the goldsmiths whose names were disclosed by the bank sweeper and interrogation of the three is underway,` the DPO told journalists.

He said that Mr Ashig disclosed during investigation that he continued stealing gold from the bank for the last seven months, picking one or two bags after every two to three days.

`Mr Ashig still wanted to continue this practice and pick more gold bags when the bank staff traced the case of missing gold,` said another police officer.

The sweeper also disclosed the name of another accomplice identified as Sajjad who belongs to Mardan district. `He (Sajjad) had taken the lion`s share and reports from Mardan said that he had gone to the UAE. He was also a goldsmith, deputed by the bank staff to check the gold whenever brought by people for deposit,` said the DPO, adding that police had also recovered Rs768,000 from the sweeper.

Mr Khan said that senior bank staff, including Syed Waseem Akhtar, senior vice-president regional head, and Asghar Ali general manager (operations), came from Peshawar and met with the bank staff to discuss the whole scenario.

In earlier such cases, two robbers were killed in a shootout on October 9 after looting a bank here, but their other accomplices who collected Rs1.4 million from a private bank branch fled on their motorcycles.

On May 22, robbers looted about Rs2 million from a UBL branch in Maini village while on April 2 unidentified men committed a robbery at Dagai branch of HBL. On May 31, 2011, four robbers took away Rs2.3 million from an NBP branch in Zarobi village.