Technicians find ₹1.2 million shredded by rats in an ATM in Assam

• Mice chewed up a heap of notes worth ₹1.2 million in an SBI ATM in Assam.
  
• Twitter Trolls had a field day, many saw it as a call for action.
  
• FIR was lodged but the police officer ‘refused’ since there was no involvement of any bank officer or outsider.

In a bizarre incident that took place on 11 June, ₹1.2 million were found shredded to pieces by mice in a State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Tinsukia, 500 kilometres from Guwahati, Assam.

FIS Global Business Solutions, a private security company, had deposited ₹2.948 million in the ATM on 19 May. And, the machine ran out of service just the very next day and a complaint was lodged.

It took technicians almost a month to check on the ATM and according to the Tinsukia Superintendent of Police, Mugdhajyoti Mahanta, the technicians arrived from Kolkata on 11 June. on opening up the machine, they found a dead rodent on a pile of shredded notes of mostly ₹500 and ₹2000 denominations.

According to the technicians, the mice probably entered the ATM through a hole made for the wires. They managed to salvage ₹1.7 million from the machine.

Twitter, as expected, exploded over the incident. They called it ‘Demonestisation 2.0’ and ‘Surgical Strike by mice’. While most used humour to express their shock, some rumours lead HDFC bank to clarify on Twitter that the ATM did not belong to their bank.


According to locals, the people were suspicious about the fact that it took the technicians so long to check on the ATM. It is clear that an early action could have minimised the loss of notes significantly. An FIR had been lodged in Hijuguri and the incident had been under investigation. The police reported that they have not found the involvement of any bank officer or outsider and that they have informed the concerned SBI officers about this.