Thieves struck hard in Chhattisgarh’s Korba city, making away with a 70-foot-long steel bridge weighing over 10 tonnes, stunning both locals and the police.
The bridge over a canal was more than 40 decades old, said police on Saturday, adding that the robbery took place on the intervening night of January 17-18, when residents noticed in the morning that the steel bridge built over the Hasdeo Left Canal, used as a pedestrian pathway in Ward No. 17 of the Dhodhipara area, had gone missing.
Local corporator, Laxman Shrivas, then lodged a complaint, Korba Additional Superintendent of Police Lakhan Patle said.
Investigators have found the involvement of 15 persons in the incident, who allegedly used gas cutters to cut the iron railings of the structure and sold it as scrap. Five of the accused have been arrested so far, officials said, while efforts are on to trace the remaining 10, including the alleged kingpins Mukesh Sahu and Aslam Khan, who are currently absconding.
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Five of the accused arrested are: Lochan Kevat (20), Jaysingh Rajput (23), Moti Prajapati (27), Sumit Sahu (19) and Keshavpuri Goswami alias ‘Picture’ (22), all residents of the CSEB police chowki area, Patle said.
A special police team constituted to probe the matter used technical analysis, inputs given by informers and sustained investigation to identify all the accused. Those arrested have confessed to committing the theft to sell the iron as scrap, he added.
Meanwhile, CSEB police chowki in-charge, Bhimsen Yadav, said around seven tonnes of steel, which had been hidden inside the canal, has been seized, along with the vehicle used to transport the stolen steel. The police are now probing where the remaining material was sold.
In the absence of the steel bridge, people are forced to use a nearby concrete bridge to cross the canal, Shrivas said.
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