A gang of robbers in Bihar managed to dismantle and steal an entire diesel train engine meant for repair at Garhara yard in Barauni. The gang that devised the plan intended to make money by selling off diesel and vintage train engines and unbolting steel bridges, according to the Times of India report.
The crime incident came to the fore after the police detained three people based on inputs. It is when the police discovered 13 sacks of engine parts from a scrap godown located in Muzaffarpur's Prabhat Colony.
It went on to discover a tunnel near the yard through which the thieves would come and steal engine parts and carry them away in sacks with the railway authorities none the wiser, the report quoted an officer as saying.
The police later came to know from Purnia district recently that conmen sold off an entire vintage metre gauge steam engine which was stationed at the local railway station for public display.
In the course of the investigation, the police discovered that a railway engineer had sold off the classic steam engine on the basis of a forged letter claimed to have been issued by the divisional mechanical engineer, Samastipur division.
Amid all this, another gang unbolted an iron bridge over Sitadhar river in Bihar’s northeastern Araria district after which an FIR was registered and a constable was deployed for security purposes.
The Paltania bridge, as it is popularly known in the area, connects Forbesganj town with Raniganj, another town in Araria. Police were hugely surprised after finding some iron angles and other key parts of the bridge missing from there.
The police later implemented measures to ensure the bridge doesn’t get stolen. The police registered a case against unidentified people for stealing parts of the iron bridge and the investigation is on.
In April this year, robbers sold off a 45-year-old steel bridge weighing some 500 tons after dismantling it during the daytime, as no one suspected their intention.
Police arrested eight people in the case, including an assistant engineer of the water resources department. Based on their confessions, police recovered the scrap material.