Six men have been arrested in Mumbai in connection with the alleged theft of copper wire valued at Rs 6 lakh to 7 lakh. Five of the suspects allegedly pretended to be working for the civic body or other similar agencies to remove and steal the wires. The incident came to light last week after Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) officials approached Matunga police station.
MTNL officials filed the complaint after noticing hundreds of telephone lines in the Dadar-Matunga area were non-functional, and finding that over a hundred metres of copper wire had been stolen.
The police told PTI that the footpath along the Dadar-Matunga Road in central Mumbai was dug up to carry out the theft. Following the complaint, a case was registered against unknown individuals.
To investigate, police reviewed the CCTV footage from the area and identified the thieves involved in the act. Concurrently, another police team traced the purchaser of the stolen copper wire and detained Niku Chunnilal Gupta, a scrap dealer.
According to their investigations, the accused burned the cables to strip off the coatings and melt the copper for resale. Gupta, during interrogation, disclosed the involvement of Manish Jain, who allegedly carried out the theft with four others.
Subsequently, Mumbai Police arrested four individuals residing in the western suburbs and Thane area. With these arrests, police have busted a gang responsible for digging up roads and footpaths to steal utility cables.
According to the PTI report, a police official said the theft initially went unnoticed due to frequent excavation work by the civic body and other agencies in the city. Digging up of roads for infrastructure projects and pre-monsoon works is common in Mumbai, so residents of Dadar and neighbouring areas assumed it was routine work when they saw the suspected thieves extracting the copper wire from under the footpath.