Police bust ring stealing MTNL cables; 2 held

Mumbai police bust ring stealing MTNL cables, arrest two posing as workers. Cables worth ₹1 lakh recovered from tempo. Search on for remaining accused.

Mumbai: The Azad Maidan police on Tuesday busted a ring specialising in the theft of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited’s (MTNL) PVC (polyvinyl chloride) copper cables and arrested two members of the group. The accused would pose as MTNL workers and steal cables by digging up roads and footpaths on the pretext of carrying out maintenance work, said police officials. Cables valued at around ₹1 lakh were recovered from the tempo in which the accused were travelling, the officials added.

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A police team headed by an assistant police inspector Leeladhar Patil nabbed the accused during a nakabandi duty near Fashion Street in south Mumbai on Tuesday morning. Police officials were checking vehicles when they noticed a small commercial tempo, which sped away after seeing them.

“Suspecting something wrong, our team followed the tempo. The driver lost control and stopped some 100 metres away, and we chased after the occupants of the tempo. Seven of them managed to flee, but we nabbed two people,” said a police officer.

“When the shutter of the tempo was opened, our team found they were carrying 13 pieces of PVC copper cables of measuring around 28 metre, valued at around ₹1 lakh,” the officer added.

One of the accused who managed to flee the spot had worked with MTNL as a private contractor in the past and he knew how it functioned, said police sources. The group had been stealing cables since March 2022, the sources added.

“The accused would pose as MTNL workers and on the pretext of carrying out maintenance work, dig up roads to steal the cables installed there. They mostly did this at night, putting up a board saying MTNL was underway, and fill up the pits afterwards,” said the police officer. The group then sold the cables in the scrap market, he added.

“MTNL officers were not aware about the theft till we approached and told them. They are the complainants in this case,” said the officer.

The two arrested accused were identified as Ashok Shinde, 43, a resident of Airoli, and Rajkumar Yadav, 26, a resident of Dhobi Talao. They have been booked them under sections 379 (theft) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and a search is on for the remaining accused who managed to flee, said police.