12 January,2018 06:39 PM IST | Mumbai | Suraj Ojha
Representation pic
A group of BEST staffers, fed up with expensive equipment at work sites going missing, decided to track down the thieves themselves. They not only found out who the thieves were but also discovered that they had stolen 90 kg of equipment worth lakhs of rupees.
Sources said, staffer Sunil Bhagat, who works with the BEST's electricity wing, was entrusted with the job of checking sites where electric work was going on. On January 4, he and his team visited the Reay Road area where road digging work was on and workers were placing a wire connection between Mazgaon and Cotton Green.
A police officer said, "When they reached the spot, two workers were carrying on with their work. While checking what they were doing, Bhagat found the workers pulling out some copper wire. This made him suspicious and sometime later he and his team followed the two men when they got into a taxi with the wire."
The taxi eventually stopped near a scrap shop in Byculla. Bhagat realised that they had come to sell the wire and immediately informed the Byculla police. They soon arrived and nabbed everyone inside the shop. The cops then searched the shop and found copper wire and other equipment that had been stolen from the BEST work site.
The police have identified the two workers as Dilip Trivedi, 42, and Marimuthu Manikutti, 36. They also arrested the scrap shop owner, identified as Bilal Sheikh, 30. After a search, the police recovered 12 pieces of copper cable, 66 kg of T-joints, 40 kg of copper wire, and other material, weighing a total of 90 kg.
The Byculla police have booked the accused under sections of 136 and 137 of the Electricity Act. They are investigating to find out since when the workers have been stealing BEST equipment and how much they have earned out of it.
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