After the theft of a 60-ft abandoned iron railway bridge, two kilometres of railway track, and diesel and steam engines, Bihar is now witness to the ‘theft’ of a pond in Darbhanga district.
Residents of Ward Number 4 of Neem-Pokhar area said they woke up on Saturday morning to find that the spot where the pond used to be had been filled in with soil. A bamboo hut had also been erected there. A video of the newly filled ground, the hut — with two red coloured chairs placed outside — was circulated on social media.
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“It was a government pond and every year tender was issued to contractors for fisheries and cultivation of water chestnuts and fox nuts but on Saturday morning we saw the spot filled with soil and a bamboo hut erected at the spot,” said Sunil Kumar, a local resident.
Darbhanga and the neighbouring Madhubani district in north Bihar have several ponds and are famous for cultivating fish, water chestnuts and fox nuts. “Since the land prices, of late, have spiralled in the district, the land mafias may have filed the pond with soil at night to sell it off at higher prices,” Arvind Jha, another resident, told The Hindu. The nexus between land mafias and district officials cannot be ruled out in these cases, he added.
The residents, later, informed the local police who visited the spot and said that officials of the departments concerned would conduct further investigation. “People say the pond was filled with soil in the last 10-15 days and the work was done at night. Officials had visited the spot but we do not have any information about who owns this land. The concerned department officials and the district administration will investigate it further,” said Amit Kumar, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Darbhanga. The CO (Circle Officer) of the area too had visited the spot, he added.
In April last year, an abandoned railway bridge weighing 500 tonne was stolen from Amiyawar village in Nasriganj in Rohtas district. In February, two kilometres of railway track worth crores of rupees was stolen by scrap dealers in Madhubani district, alleged in connivance with Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel.
In November, a rail diesel engine stationed in the Garhara railway yard in Begusarai district was stolen, part by part. A tunnel had been dug to access the yard.
Besides, a railway engineer of Samastipur Loco Diesel Shed was suspended for allegedly selling an old rail steam engine. The engineer — in connivance with other railway officials and security personnel — was accused of forging a letter from the Divisional Mechanical engineer of Samastipur rail division to sell off the engine.
After the theft of the railway bridge, the Hindi song Chura liya tumne jo dil ko went viral on social media; particularly for the lines “Chura liya hai tumne jo pul ko, nahar nahi churana sanam [now that you have stolen the bridge, please do not steal the canal]“. “Now, the pond, if not nahar (canal), has been stolen in Bihar. The day is not far away when the entire river will be stolen in the State,” remarked a Patna-based resident and lawyer Amit Kumar.
“Such incidents of theft are bound to happen in the State in the regime of bade bhai-chhote bhai (elder brother Lalu Prasad and younger brother Nitish Kumar),” alleged Opposition BJP leader of the State and former Minister Bhim Singh.
