new delhi four unidentified armed men barged into the office of a finance firm on a crowded stretch of east delhi on tuesday afternoon and held the staff and a customer hostage before fleeing with rs 315 lakh in cash and gold worth a few croresthe incident took place at muthoot finance just 10 metres from the pandav nagarip extension crossing around 115 pm sources confirmed that about 93 kg of gold and rs 15 lakh in cash had been taken away though there were conflicting reports that more than 16 kg of gold and rs 35 lakh in cash had been lost the office had been functioning in the area since last year we have kept all possible angles open we are trying to collect as much local information as possible said acting dcp prabhakarwithin hours the cops had launched operation black rose to catch the robbers roadblocks were set up across the city in an effort to nab the men who were said to have escaped on bikes however till late at night there had been very little progress beyond a few detentions and questioningthe incident has also raised a number of questions including the response time of the bank employees the absence of cctv cameras a silent alarm system and absence of armed security guards the company had earlier been targeted in some other cases too in ncr and the cops said it should have been more vigilanta case in this regard has been registered at mandawali police station besides the special staff of east district police the special operation squad of crime branch has also been roped in to investigate the caseaccording to the statements of bank manager k c kanojia and the owner of an adjoining tea stall it was around 115 pm when four male staffers were doing the usual office work when three men entered the first floor office through the main door adjoining a balcony one of the accused reportedly stayed back downstairs to keep a watch a woman customer was present inside the bank at that moment initially only one person wearing a turban entered the office and asked for kanojia saying he needed to apply for a loan he soon whipped out a countrymade revolver and threatened the manager with it asking him not to move his two associates one holding a handkerchief and the other a helmet entered the bank they collected the cash and then turned to the strongroom adjoining the managers room they forced it open and filled a bag they had bought with them with gold items probably mortgaged the three men then took a laptop bag lying nearby from one of the bank officials and filled it too with goldasking the hostages not to make any sound for they would then have to shoot they escaped eyewitnesses said all the accused were wellbuilt between 24 and 28 years of age and spoke hindi fluently the entire hiest was over in seven minutes by