Bharuch (Gujarat),  The police in Gujarat's Bharuch have arrested six robbers who had looted the Union Bank's Ankleshwar branch here on Thursday, and recovered Rs 17 lakh from their possession, along with four country-made pistols, two live cartridges and five cellphones.

The police had rushed to Ankleshwar on Thursday afternoon after coming to know of the bank robbery. Preliminary information had said that four armed persons had barged into the bank and decamped with Rs 44,24,015 in cash. Later it was found that a total of six persons were involved in the robbery.

Sources said when the police tried to chase them, the gang of robbers splitted into groups of two and took two different escape routes.

After a brief exchange of fire, the police managed to injure one of the robbers and take him into custody. He has been identified as Rahul Kumar Singh, the mastermind.

Bharuch SP Leena Patel said the police managed to recover a bag containing Rs 22 lakh, which the robbers threw at the police while escaping.

On questioning Singh, the police learnt that all the gang members were from Bihar and had come to Ankleshwar to carry out a robbery, for which they had stolen two bikes earlier in the day.

Acting on the information received from Singh, the police in a midnight operation on Thursday nabbed the remaining five accused from Lakshmannagar, a residential area, and recovered Rs 17 lakh from their possession.

They have been identified as Rohit Singh, Ritesh Mandal, Mukesh Mandal, Manish Mandal and Deepak Singh.