Three out of four people who allegedly stole copper wire bundles worth ₹ 38 lakh from the Police Command and Control Centre (CCC) in Banjara Hills were caught by Hyderabad police. All four accused were employed in various positions at the CCC — a State surveillance behemoth which is under construction.
One of the accused is a store helper, two were in security wing, and the fourth is an ambulance driver. The copper wire bundles stolen from a store in the building was taken away in an ambulance.
Police said that Shankar Kumar, store helper, and Sonu Khan, ambulance driver, plotted to steal the copper wires. Sourab Biswas worked as security guard and Bikash Ranjan Behera was the security supervisor. Sonu Khan, who owns the ambulance, was employed at the construction site since the past four years. He used to park the vehicle in a basement.
Banjara Hills police inspector K Nageswar Rao said that the four had started stealing the bundles from April 21 of this year. “They stole 38 bundles over 40 days,” said Mr Nageswar Rao. While Shankar had to leave after a point of time, the remaining three continued the clandestine activity.
Whenever there was a chance, they loaded the bundles in the ambulance. Since Sonu was a familiar face at the construction site, and as the vehicle was an ambulance, nobody used to check it.
They sold the bundles at three scrap stores, which agreed to pay around ₹ 600 to ₹ 700 per kg. Each bundle weighed around 100 kgs. As per their agreement, the accused were paid around ₹ 3.7 lakh, and the rest was assured to be paid after melting the wires, said the police.
A complaint was lodged by in-charge of a construction company on Friday that the copper wire bundles were missing. The police have investigated the case and caught the three accused. Shankar Kumar is absconding.
