24-yr-old held over theft of copper pipes connected to hospital’s oxygen plant

Deputy commissioner of police (outer) Parvinder Singh said that the pipeline was connected to the newly installed oxygen plant to supply oxygen to the Covid ward and operation theatre (OT)-2 of the hospital.

A 24-year-old man was arrested for allegedly cutting and stealing nearly 40kg of copper from a pipeline connected to an oxygen plant imported from Germany and installed at the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial hospital.

A senior police officer said the accused was arrested and the cut pipes were recovered within two hours of the theft being reported on July 17. (HT Archives. Representative image)

Deputy commissioner of police (outer) Parvinder Singh said that the pipeline was connected to the newly installed oxygen plant to supply oxygen to the Covid ward and operation theatre (OT)-2 of the hospital.

Dr PS Nayyer, medical superintendent of the hospital, said the pipes from cut up from the wards. “There will be no loss to the government as the contractor had not handed off the area to us. Work is still going on,” he said.

A senior police officer said the accused was arrested and the cut pipes were recovered within two hours of the theft being reported on July 17.

“The arrested man, Pawan, is an alcohol addict and lives in a house near the hospital. He stole the copper to arrange money for buying alcohol. He was previously involved in two gambling cases,” said DCP Singh.

He further said that the crime was captured on the hospital’s CCTV camera. “The CCTV footage of the incident showed that the three people stuffed the pieces of the pipe in a sack and left the hospital on a motorcycle. The vehicle number was noted and all the guards were informed. Two of them came to the hospital on the same motorcycle the next day and were caught by a guard. They were handed over to the police. The recovery was made within 24 hours,” said Dr Nayyer.

The DCP said that the medical superintendent of the hospital had filed a complaint regarding the theft on July 17 at the Mangolpuri police station. The complainant said that the theft took place on July 15.