Rats have nibbled through more than 1m rupees of banknotes after entering a cash machine in north-east India, police said.

The costly invasion in Assam state was only detected by bank officials after complained that the machine was faulty and had stopped dispensing cash, police in Tinsukia district said.

“The bank officials came to check the ATM machine last week and found a dead rat and shredded banknotes when it was opened,” the district police superintendent, Mugdhajyoti Dev Mahanta, said.

“We’ve checked and there is no other criminal or conspiracy angle to the incident. It looks like the rats entered the machine through a small opening for some wires.”

The rats munched through an estimated 1.2m rupees (£13,300), local media reported. Images showed an upended ATM filled with torn and shredded 500 and 2,000 rupee notes.