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A woman in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur has raised serious questions over the security of bank lockers after claiming that jewellery and other valuables worth nearly Rs 50 lakh disappeared from her State Bank of India (SBI) locker. According to the woman, she had opened the locker in 2003 at the then State Bank of Travancore’s Swaroop Nagar branch. The bank was later merged with SBI in 2017 along with several other associate banks, bringing the State Bank of Travancore brand to an end.

She claimed that she had stored gold jewellery and other valuables worth around Rs 50 lakh inside the locker. Following her husband’s death, she moved to Lucknow and could not visit the Kanpur branch regularly. However, locker charges continued to be deducted from her bank account, prompting her to believe that the locker remained operational.

When she recently returned to access the locker, she was reportedly told that the relevant records were not immediately available because of the bank merger. After officials traced the details and verified the records, she was eventually permitted to open the locker.

The locker was allegedly completely empty.

The woman subsequently approached the police, alleging that the jewellery and other valuables she had deposited in the locker were missing. Acting on her complaint, police registered an FIR at Swaroop Nagar police station against the branch manager and other bank employees.

During the preliminary investigation, police reportedly discovered entries suggesting that the locker had been accessed in the past. Police are now scrutinising bank records, locker access registers, CCTV footage and other documents to establish when the locker was opened and how the valuables allegedly went missing.