Over 450 bank branches, including over 50 ATMs, have been looted and destroyed by miscreants following the assassination of former premier and Chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Benazir Bhutto.
The miscreants also vandalised several non-online bank branches and killed nine people, including four bank officials and three guards, sources in the banking industry told Business Recorder on Monday. They claimed the banking industry, for the first time, had suffered such a huge losses, which into billions. However, they accused the professional criminals and thieves of looting and destruction of bank branches, particularly in Sindh province.
About the resumption of banking activities, they said that it would take at least two weeks to come to normalcy, as the miscreants destroyed the entire banking infrastructure, making the services completely paralysed in parts of Sindh during the last four days.
Figures provided by the officials and operational group officers of different banks and financial institution suggested that over 450 branches of various banks had been vandalised or looted during this period. Over 70 percent incidents of banks destruction, plundering and torching had been reported in the interior Sindh and Karachi, the sources said.
All bank branches in Larkana, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas had been burnt or destroyed, bringing about a virtual suspension of services in these areas, they said. "At present, there is no possibility to resume the banking system in the small cities on immediate basis, as banks were operating there with a few branches, which have come under severe attacks, while the law and order situation is still not under control," they added.
"Moreover, destruction of all bank records of the non-online branches have made it impossible to retrieve the destroyed files and other data. However, the online banks with strong online back will not face such problems," bank officials claimed. In the entire violent episode, the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) was the worst sufferer, as its four staffers lost their lives in the interior Sindh.
NPB spokesman Ameem Akhtar said that the NBP main branch in Khairpur Miras also had been burnt by the miscreants four officers, who were inside the branch, burnt to death. The entire NBP family had shocked on this great human tragedy and the NBP fully sympathised with the aggrieved families, he added.
Chairman and President of NBP S. Ali Raza has announced rupees one million each to the families of deceased bank officers and a job in the bank for the immediate relatives of the expired officers, he said. He said that during this act of vandalism, an employee of NBP Foundation and two policemen also lost their lives while protecting the branch.
The Managing Director of NBP Foundation has granted a compensation of rupees one million each to the families of the deceased employees. The NBP has also decided to give Rs 300,000 to each policeman, who lost their lives in the incident.
Senior Executive Vice President of NBP Khalid Mehmood said that some 87 branches of the bank had been affected during the four-day violence and out of them 56 NBP branches had been completely destroyed. " Some five branches have been destroyed in Karachi, while the rest in interior Sindh," he added.
Habib Bank Limited (HBL) Public Relations Officer Anwar Jabeen Qureshi said that over all 111 bank branches and 20 ATMs had been damaged, including 59 in interior Sindh.
He said that all bank employees were safe. "United Bank Limited also faced suffered losses during the hooliganism and its 53 branches had been completely burnt or looted, 50 of them partially damaged," an official of UBL said. However he claimed that all back up of the bank branches was safe and the bank would resume operation very soon.
"Some 41 branches of Allied Bank of Pakistan had been looted, burnt or damaged across the country during the last four days" said Arshad Khan of the ABL. He said that ABL had started recovery operation and some 11 branches had been operational on Monday and overall some 734 ABL branches, out of 754 were operating on Monday.
Sources said that over 70 branches of MCB Bank had also been damaged. However, the bank management, despite several contacts, had not provided any official figures. Public Relations Officer of Picic Ibn-I-Hasan has confirmed that some 14 branches, including 12 branches of Picic Commercial Banks, had been vandalised during the violence.
"Our four branches, included in Lyari, Mirpurkhas, Larkana, Shikarpur, have been destroyed during the disturbance," said Shaheen Zameer, PRO of First Women Bank Limited.
Some seven branches of Askari Bank Limited, including, its branches in Korangi, Timber Market, Larkana, Jackababad, has been destroyed and two guards in the interior Sindh have lost their lives. Four branches of Zarai Tariqiyati Bank limited in Daharki and Ghotki, one branch of Meezan Bank, one branch of Tameer Bank have also been destroyed across the country.
In addition, according to unofficial figures, some five branches of Bank Alflah, a branch of Bank Al Habib and a recovery office of SME at Bahawalpur have been destroyed. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has asked the banks to provide the detail of damaged branches during the next three days.
"We have instructed all the banks and financial institutions to submit the details of damaged branches by January 4," said the SBP spokesman. Link-1 also has confirmed that some 37 ATMs has been devastated during the violence and they are still collecting the details of damage.
Majority of officials have said that bank branches were completely insured, therefore, the banks would not suffer huge losses, as the respective insurance companies would pay the major losses. However, the data lost would be major losses of the banks, which could not be accommodated, while the bank's customers would be affected by the entire situation, as they would face problems to get banking services for over one week to one month, they added.

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Name                       Total                          -
Habib Bank Limited         111         Officially confirmed
United Bank Limited        103         Officially confirmed
National Bank Limited       87         Officially confirmed
MCB Bank                    70     Officially not confirmed
Allied Bank Limited         41         Officially confirmed
PICIC                       14         Officially confirmed
AskariBank                   7         Officially confirmed
Bank Alfallah                5         Officially confirmed
First Women Bank Ltd         4         Officially confirmed
Zari Tariqyati Bank Ltd      4     Officially not confirmed
SME Bank                     1         Officially confirmed
Bank AlHabib                 1     Officially not confirmed
Almeezan bank                1         Officially confirmed
Tameer Bank                  1         Officially confirmed
Total                      450                            -
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ATM destroyed             Over 50      Officially confirmed
Bank Employees lost lives       4      Officially confirmed
Guards and Policeman Killed     5      Officially confirmed
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