DUBAI: In an armed robbery in Sharjah, three masked men held five bank employees at knife point and made off with 500,000 dirhams on Tuesday.
Police said the three robbers burst into the Al-Khan branch of Mashreq Bank a few minutes before closing time brandishing knives and a hammer. Five bank employees, three of them women, were in the bank at the time.
The robbers threatened to slit the throats of two employees, one of them a woman, if they did not fill their bags with cash. On leaving, the men locked the bank’s doors from outside and then fled in two cars.
Nobody was injured in the incident, police said, adding that the whole episode took place in less than two minutes. The bank had no security guards at the time of the robbery.
Eyewitnesses described the robbers to be of Asian descent. Police said the suspected criminals are amateurs because they left their fingerprints at the crime scene. They said they are following leads and expect to make some arrests soon.
