The officials said the criminals had been living in a rented house. (Representational)
An armed robber was shot dead and two of his associates were injured on Tuesday in the office of a private financial company in Dhanbad during an exchange of fire with the police, who had rushed in to foil the loot attempt, the police said.
Two members of the gang were apprehended by the police while two others managed to flee.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Dhanbad, Sanjiv Kumar told journalists the bank robbers had entered a Muthoot Finance office near Matkuriya here, posing as customers, soon after it opened its doors around 10.30 am.
They then brandished a gun at the branch manager.
Police station in-charge, P K Singh rushed to the finance company office on getting information and were fired upon by them.
The police retaliated killing one of them on the spot, and constables overpowered two others, the SSP said.
A search has been launched to net the two persons who have escaped, he said.
The police fired four rounds while the criminals fired around 10 rounds of bullets. Empty cartridges were recovered from the spot.
The SSP said the robbery attempt was foiled due to due quick action of the police.
"The names of arrested criminals did not match with the identities disclosed by them during interrogation and the Aadhar cards recovered from their possession. One criminal mentioned his name as Nirmal Singh Power of Madhya Pradesh while in the Aadhar card his name was found to be Ashif of Samastipur", he said.
"Similarly, another arrested person said his name was Gunjan Kumar of Ranchi's Lalgunj but in the Aadhar card his name is Raghav of Lakhisarai ( Bihar)," the police said. Police have recovered an automatic weapon and a bag containing tools and two bikes having fake registration numbers.
The officials said the criminals had been living in a rented house in the Dhansar area of the city and had conducted a recce of a jewellery shop in the district.
On September 3, armed criminals looted jewellery worth over Rs 1 crore from a showroom.
Tuesday's incident evoked memories of the 1991 bank loot here in which former Dhanbad superintendent of police Randhir Prasad Verma was killed during his line of duty resisting the robbers. He was posthumously awarded the country's highest gallantry award Ashok Chakra.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)