Gurugram: Equipment meant for smart city project stolen from Bhondsi

Police booked a group of unidentified persons for allegedly stealing spare equipment worth lakhs of rupees meant for electrification work under the Gurugram Smart City project from a storage area at Bhondsi on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday

Police booked a group of unidentified persons for allegedly stealing spare equipment worth lakhs of rupees meant for electrification work under the Gurugram Smart City project from a storage area at Bhondsi on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.

Gurugram, India- January 05, 2019: Workers seen at a road near Badkhal Chowk, Sector 28, in Faridabad, India, on Sunday, January 5, 2020. A 1.67-kilometre-long smart road, first of its kind in Faridabad, launched as part of the Smart City project, is certain to miss its Jan 31, 2020 deadline. The road lies between on the National Highway No. 19 and the Bypass Road on the eastern side running parallel to the highway. Construction of the road, which ought to have taken off in 2017, could start only in January 2019 due to administrative hurdles, but January 31, 2020, was announced as the deadline at the time of its launch. Now, however, it might be at least another year before the project sees completion. (HT Photo) **To go with Prayag Arora’s story (Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO)

Police said an FIR was registered on Monday night under section 379 (punishment for theft) of the Indian Penal Code at Bhondsi police station based on the complaint registered by a manager of the firm, which is working on the smart city project on behalf of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam.

According to the FIR, the thieves decamped with seven different kinds of equipment from the storage area of the firm handling the electrification project.

Police said the storage area is spread on more than three acres and tin sheets have been used for covering and earmarking the boundary of the storage area.

Police suspect that the suspects may have come to the storage firm in a vehicle as the items they have stolen are quite heavy.

Rajender Kumar, station house officer of Bhondsi police station, said the suspects cut open the tin sheets to gain access to the storage area.

“The stolen equipment includes wires meant for underground electrification. The suspects cut the wires into pieces and fled with the items,” he said.

Kumar said that there is no CCTV camera or any proper security for the storage area. “All the equipment were actually kept in an open area,” he said adding they are trying to zero in on the suspects.