A gang of thieves stole a 550 ton bridge in India, according to the Asian News International (ANI) news agency. The men dismantled the bridge in broad daylight, ANI reported. Two government officials and a local politician were later arrested, according to the Times of India.
A gang of thieves stole a 60-foot, 550-ton bridge in northeastern India for lucrative scrap value, according to the Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI). Police arrested eight men, including two government officials, a police official said, according to ANI. “We have arrested eight people, including an SDO (departmental officer) of the water resources department, in connection with the theft of the bridge,” Rohtas police chief Ashish Bharti told ANI. “The thieves stole the bridge in consultation with the SDO. We recovered a JCB, stolen iron channels weighing about 247 kilograms and other material,” Bharti continued. The iron bridge on the Ara-Sone canal in Bihar, which was in disrepair after being out of use since the early 2000s, was dismantled within three days of April 3, BBC News reported. The gang wore government uniforms to avoid suspicion while working at noon from 7 a.m. daily, using torches and excavators to tear it apart, BBC News reported. People in the village of Amiyavar were not unaware of the theft, the media reported. “No one suspected it was a robbery,” local journalist Jitendra Singh told the BBC. In fact, the media reported that some residents of the village were happy that the decommissioned bridge was finally removed. A phone call to the irrigation department on April 5 from Pawan Kumar, a man from a nearby village, alerted police to the crime. Kumar contacted local officials to ask why the removal of the bridge had not been followed, BBC News reported. Police then launched an investigation and raided after realizing that authorities had not issued an order to dismantle the bridge, the media reported. The story goes on Eight people were arrested, including government officials and a local politician. Radhe Shyam Sing, a subdivision officer, was arrested, according to the Times of India, as was Arvind Kumar, who worked part-time for the irrigation department and told passersby that the project had an “official approval”, according to with the BBC. Among those arrested was Shivkalyan Bhardwaj, leader of the Indian Socialist Bloc Rashtriya Janata Dal party, the Times of India reported. Four of the other detainees were working in the scrap metal industry. Selling scrap metal to illegal factories can be an extremely lucrative business in India, according to Reuters. Read the original article in Insider
