Bengaluru: Two employees at Unity Small Finance Bank in Basaveshwaranagar managed to secure bails after allegedly stealing gold ornaments belonging to the manager at the bank’s BEML Layout branch where they were posted. The gold was kept in the bank’s locker.TOI was the first to report the case on Jan 22, 2025.The accused were identified as Aishwarya (26), a resident of Sunkadakatte, and Harshit (27), a resident of Kamalanagar — both BTech graduates. Police said the duo sold off the stolen jewellery to shop and repay loans. While Aishwarya secured an anticipatory bail on April 15, Harshit was arrested and remanded in judicial custody, before he, too, secured bail.The ornaments were sold off to a jeweller in Agrahara Dasarahalli. On May 13, investigators recovered approximately 170 gm of ornaments valued at Rs 16 lakh. Efforts are on to recover the remaining items, a senior officer confirmed. Aishwarya was responsible for locker operations, while Harshit worked as a field officer. The incident came to light after the branch manager approached the police on Jan 18, reporting that her gold ornaments — approximately 250 gm — kept in locker No. 51 were missing.According to her complaint, the manager had last checked the locker in May 2024, when the contents were all intact. When she attempted to open the locker in Oct, she discovered that her key was missing. Despite a thorough search, it could not be located.The manager told the police that a customer key and a master key are both required to open the locker. While the manager carried the customer key, the master key was kept in the bank’s cash box. She suspected the customer key might have been stolen from her bag.The locker was finally broken open in the presence of the bank staff on Dec 30. While the documents kept in the locker were all there, the ornaments were missing.Owing to a lack of CCTV coverage and a delay in reporting the incident, police couldn’t make much headway with the investigation initially.As police started interrogating the bank staff, they zeroed in on Aishwarya when she absconded after being issued a notice to appear before the investigating officer.Soon, the cops established that Aishwarya and Harshit were close associates, and the latter was detained on March 30.During questioning, Harshit cracked up and confessed to stealing the gold along with Aishwarya. He told the police they had used both the customer key and master key to open the locker, remove the gold, and locked it back to avoid suspicion.