One of India’s biggest bank heists in a sleepy Kerala town: 80 kg of gold stolen, ₹8 crore in total value looted ... and the subject of a recent book. The author writes about his decade-long journey.
Malayalam actor Mohanlal launches Anirban Bhattacharyya's book 'India's Money Heist: The Chelembra Bank Robbery' earlier this month (Supplied)
I needed a story. A juicy, thrilling, pacy story. I had had enough of researching and showing stories of extramarital affairs, murders, greedy relatives, and love stories gone wrong.
This was 2012. I had created a true crime show called Savdhaan India and it had become a hit with television viewers. But it had been 11 months of the same kind of stories and as showrunner, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to tell the story of a real-life bank heist.
Who doesn’t like a heist story? Ocean’s Eleven, The Bank Job, Robinhood (Malayalam), Shalimar (Hindi), Mankatha (Tamil), Reservoir Dogs, Heat … the cat-and-mouse games between criminals and the police always provide us with an adrenaline rush. And so here I was looking for a story.
I googled ‘India’s biggest bank robbery’ and there it was on my laptop screen. The Chelembra bank robbery (2007). I read the Wikipedia entry: ₹8 crore stolen, a theft inspired by the movie Dhoom, and that was it!
IPS P Vijayan (2nd row, 2nd from left) and his team that investigated the Chelembra bank robbery with Commissioner of Police, Kochi City CH Nagaraju (2nd row, centre) and the author Anirban Bhattacharyya (2nd row, second from right) at the book launch (Supplied)
And then nine years would go by as I would continue to research the story and try to find leads. In 2020, I reached out to my erstwhile classmate Rajesh Abraham, who lives in Kochi. All I had was a name: P Vijayan, the man who had solved the case along with his team. I was pleasantly shocked when he said, “What a coincidence, I have a meeting with him tomorrow!”
It seemed fate had finally seen my desperation. It was serendipity. A few phone calls later, I was finally on the way to write the book. Over the next year, I spent hundreds of hours with Vijayan sir and his investigating team from 2008, interviewing them, cross-examining their facts like a seasoned lawyer over video calls, and then spending sleepless nights putting it all together into a narrative.
It was a huge challenge trying to walk through the cobweb-infested and dusty minds of the officers. The case was from 12 years ago, and their memory was rusty. But like a teacher, I gave them homework after every session, and like good students, they returned for the next session with their homework duly completed. And as police officers are wont to be, they were matter of fact and devoid of emotions even though they were narrating one of the biggest cases solved by the Kerala Police.
“And when you made the breakthrough, how did you feel?” I excitedly asked one of the officers (name deliberately hidden as it would be a spoiler for the readers of the book).
“It was okay,” he replied matter-of-factly. I looked at him on the screen and tried again… “Sir this was the moment you were all waiting for… how can it be just okay… sir did you scream eureka, did you rejoice?” I prodded him with the hope that he would describe to me the ‘eureka’ moment.
“It was alright,” was his reply.
And that is when the beauty of the officers and their work struck me. These were dedicated police officers who just did their duty without sparing an effort and without making too much noise about it. They were not trying to grab the limelight. It was everyday work for them.
By 2020, I was already a bestselling author. My first book The Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers published by Penguin India was already a big hit. Launched by film director Anurag Kashyap, the book had been recommended by John Abraham and Ayushmann Khurrana.
IPS P Vijayan at the book launch (Supplied)
It was at the Gurgaon Literature Festival 2019 when I first mentioned the Chelembra bank robbery book to my editor Gurveen Chadha although I had not even started writing it. I somehow knew that I would manage to unearth the story. It was the perpetual ‘gut-feel’ that Vikraman and Mohanachandran had in the book. Gurveen asked to see the sample chapters. I told her that I have not even started writing it. Gurveen laughed and said, “Best of luck. … Send it to me when you are ready.”
2021. I was finally done with the book and ready to share it with her. I emailed her and waited. I was nervous.
“Why are you so nervous?” Vijayan sir said over the telephone.
“What if she does not like it?” I said nervously.
“Rubbish you talk! Think positive. She will love it. For the first time this historic case is being told in so much detail,” Vijayan sir scolded me as well as soothed my nervousness.
“But…”
“I have read it two times already. And I don’t have the patience to read books anymore. That should tell you something about your writing. It is fantastic!” Vijayan sir continued.
I thought maybe sir was just being polite.
Within 24 hours of me sharing the first few chapters of the book with Gurveen, I got an excited call from her.
“It’s super. Let’s do this.” And we were on!
I broke the good news with the investigating team over Zoom. The team was immensely happy. And again no loud hurrahs or celebrations. Instead they congratulated me like I had solved the case!
Director Ranjith receives the first book from Mohanlal at the launch function (Supplied)
And finally in 2022, after having chased this story for 10 years, the book India’s Money Heist: The Chelembra Bank Robbery was published by Penguin India. And I was blessed to have the legendary actor Mohanlal sir launch the book at Lulu Mall Kochi at the DC Books Lit Fest, along with director Ranjith sir and Vijayan sir, in front of 5,000 people! And within 48 hours of the launch, the book became the No.1 bestseller on Amazon in the criminology section.
What attracted me to this story and incident? That urge in 2012 and the constant roadblocks and failures in getting any information on the incident made me stubborn and pig-headed. It made me more determined to chase the story. It was almost like a supernatural force was pulling me to tell the story.
The story is truly unbelievable. I gawked at Vijayan sir with every new detail that was revealed to me. It was like an onion that was being peeled layer by layer.
The story was not just about a hole that was dug to enter the strongroom of the bank, it was so much more.
The story was about a man called Jaison who dared to dream and envision this near-impossible heist.
It is the story of him putting his crew together. It is about how fate works in the universe. The story is about the incredulous chase that the supercops give to the criminal mastermind. It is a breathless catch-me-if-you-can.
All I knew about the case when I started writing the book was the hole, the empty restaurant below, and the 80 kg of gold that was stolen.
By the time I finished writing the book, it felt like I had just seen the biggest blockbuster of the year. It was like a movie. The book has all the elements: love, drama, friendship, action, crime, thrill, and more.
Anirban Bhattacharyya with Mohanlal (Supplied)
Before the launch, I got to meet Lalettan and I held his hands and asked him, “You are for real, right?”
He laughed, his trademark gentle laugh, and I followed it up with, “Can I hug you to see if you are real?” He blushed and hugged me saying, “I am real.”
In life, strange things happen. In 1998 I was a film student studying in New Delhi and attending the International Film Festival at Siri Fort. I was walking down the large steps when I ran into Mohanlal. I shook his hands and told him that I was a huge fan.
Little did that student know then that 24 years later our paths would once again cross and he would be gracious enough to launch my book. Serendipity. And when you read India’s Money Heist, you will realise that so many turning points of the book are all driven by fate and serendipity.
One of the biggest challenges that I faced while writing this book was to be authentic about the Kerala culture, language, people, and ethos. I knew that although I was writing about a culture that I was unfamiliar with, I could not wing it. It had to feel real.
My style of writing includes dialogues in the local languages of my characters. More so as these are true crime stories, I like the reader to get immersed in that universe.
While my character says a dialogue in Malayalam, so does my reader… fusing them into one entity as the reader and the character become one.
My first book The Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers has dialogues in eight Indian languages.
And in this book, I held on to my trademark style. I wanted the narrative to be fast-paced and filmy. So I used Malayalam dialogues — similar to the ‘punch dialogues’ one sees in movies, or to express the local milieu and culture that has no English or western equivalent.
I read about the history of the region, the culture, festivals, and traditions of the different parts of Kerala, including how the dialect differs between the southern and northern parts of the state. And I built all of this into the narrative.
To help me get insights into this milieu I had two incredible people: researcher and writer Saif Mohammed, and journalist Anand Haridas. The biggest compliment I received was from CH Nagaraju sir, who is the Commissioner of Police, Kochi City. He shook my hands after reading the book and said, “I can’t believe that you are not from Kerala! You have captured the Kerala ethos and culture so well.”
At the launch, it was an emotional moment as I finally got to meet the entire team physically for the first time. The journey has now truly begun as the book is being read by thousands across the world: the story about one of India’s biggest bank heists in a sleepy town called Chelembra.
(For readers, if you like the book, do share your reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. And if you want to get in touch with me, you can do so on anirbanauthor@gmail.com)
