Unidentified persons have been booked after four manhole covers went missing in Sectors 45 and 46 in recent days.
The complaint, filed by Ward 34 councillor Gurpreet Singh Gabi on behalf of the Sector 45 residents’ welfare association (RWA), alleged that the missing covers were designed by Chandigarh’s master planner, Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier.
This has, however, not been established.To be sure, the city has over 2,000 original cast-iron covers, designed by Corbusier, but these are installed in the heritage sectors (Sectors 1 to 30).
The city had woken up to the importance of these covers in November 2010, when a Paris-based auction house, Artcurial, sold one of these for ₹10 lakh.
After this, a number of manhole covers began going missing, the most recent one in Sector 38 in 2024.
When asked, police officials maintained that they are still investigating whether the missing manhole covers from Sector 45 and 46 were the ones designed by Corbusier. Gabi, meanwhile, alleged that the thefts were taking place unabated in broad daylight.
“Despite bringing the matter to the notice of the police and providing necessary evidence, including CCTV footage, no effective action had been taken to prevent these incidents,” he said.