Susanta Majumdar, Debashis Bhattacharya and Mahabir Prasad were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly stealing Rs 5.5 lakh from a State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Ghoshpara, Bally.

Susanta and Debashis worked for a company that maintains the ATM, while Mahabir is an employee of the bank.

According to police, the theft was an inside job. The thieves had used the password of the ATM vault to access the money.

The manager, chief accountant and field officer of the SBI branch adjacent to the ATM and an officer of the agency that maintains the ATM knew the password.

Superintendent of Howrah police Niraj Singh said: “We had interrogated a number of people in the past few days. But no one has been arrested so far.”

The theft at the ATM came to light last Tuesday. Customers of the bank alerted the authorities after failing to draw money from the ATM. A sum of Rs 5.5 lakh was missing from the vault.The bank lodged a complaint with Bally police station.