BANGALORE: A woman bank manager was brutally attacked inside an unguarded ATM kiosk on busy JC Road on Tuesday morning. The kiosk, located in the LIC divisional office building, is about 50 metres from Halasuru Gate police station .

Jyothi Uday, 44, manager in charge of the cheque truncation system at the Mission Road service branch of Corporation Bank, was attacked at 7.10am. A gun-wielding attacker hit her on the head with a machete after she resisted his demand that she withdraw cash and hand it over to him.

After the attacker fled, Jyothi, a Rajarajeshwari Nagar resident, lay unconscious in a pool of blood for over three hours. Two schoolchildren who saw blood flowing out of the ATM raised an alarm, drawing the attention of a traffic policeman and passersby.

Doctors said Jyothi has suffered injuries to her skull, leaving the right side of her body paralyzed.

Jyothi usually leaves her home around 6.30am and takes a bus to NR Square before walking to her Mission Road workplace, a stone's throw away. On Tuesday, she took a detour to the Corporation Bank ATM in the building that houses LIC's accounting division, opposite Unity Building.

Investigating officers gathered CCTV footage from inside the ATM kiosk and reconstructed the crime.

The bank manager entered the kiosk six seconds before 7.10am. Within seconds, the attacker came in and pulled down the shutter. "The man wore a blue striped shirt. We can see his face clearly in the visuals. He first pulled a gun out of a bag he was carrying and asked her to withdraw cash. She resisted," a police officer said.

When Jyothi refused, he pulled a machete out of the bag and hit her on the head and face. She collapsed after three or four blows. The attacker then left with some contents of her purse, including her mobile. He is also seen using a piece of paper or cloth to rub the bloodstains from the machete. "Everything was over in less than four minutes. The attacker walked out of the ATM, pulled the shutter down and left," the officer added.

Police sources said the attacker may have brandished a fake gun, and spoke in Kannada.

The ATM had no security guard. Guards of the LIC accounting division came in to work only at 10.15am.

Pappanna, the person in charge of security guards at the building, told TOI he noticed the shutter had been pulled down. The ATM had been closed for maintenance, and he did not suspect anything amiss.

“We work during office timings. I reached the building around 10.15am. After opening the main gate of the building, I waited for the officers to come and open the office ,” he said.

Around 10.30pm, two boys going to school saw blood flowing out of the ATM kiosk. They said they heard moans from inside. The duo ran to a traffic policeman manning the busy intersection and informed him about what they had just seen. The constable and passersby found Jyothi lying in a pool of blood. SJ Park police were alerted and Jyothi was rushed to Victoria Hospital in an autorickshaw.

Suresh AN, a senior manager at the service branch of Corporation Bank, said Jyothi would reach office around 7.45am when on morning shift. On Tuesday, around 8.15am, her colleagues tried calling her because she had not come in. “The phone rang the first few times. Later, it was switched off. Around 10.40am, we got a call from police saying she had been attacked,” he said.

SJ Park police shifted a profusely bleeding Jyothi to Victoria Hospital, from where she was later moved to Nimhans for observation. Jyothi suffered injuries on her head, arm and nose. She was later moved to BGS Global Hospitals, Uttarahalli, where she underwent surgery in the evening.

Colleagues who visited her at the hospital said: “She was unable to give details of the attack. We have informed her husband, who had gone to Bidadi for a business trip.”

Other angles investigated although it looked like a robbery attempt, police are investigating other angles. That the assailant left behind all the gold jewellery Jyothi wore has raised suspicion about other motives. “We are also investigating if there was any personal vendetta,” Kamal Pant, additional commissioner of police, law and order, said.

