Gurugram officials thrashed for removing illegal power connections

GURUGRAM: Three members of a family from Alipur village were arrested for allegedly assaulting officials of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN). Members of the discom’s vigilance team had gone to Alipur village to check power theft in the area when they were thrashed by villagers on Sunday.
The vigilance team comprised a sub-divisional-officer (SDO), two junior engineers (JEs), a lineman and other officials. “We have received complaints about illegal power connections. During our inspection, we found that a few houses had illegally connected cables directly with power points, and many others were found to have tampered with electricity meters. When we started removing these cables and meters, villagers turned furious and started assaulting us,” said Dharmender Ruhil, SDO (operations), sub-division, DHBVN, adding that some of the officials, including a junior engineer, suffered minor injuries.

The house owners, whose illegal power cables were removed, even threatened to pelt stones at discom officials. Meanwhile, police officials from Bhondsi reached at the spot after being alerted by the vigilance team. Police rescued the DHBVN officials and arrested a few accused.

The SHO of Bhondsi police station, Umesh Kumar, said the police team reached at the spot on time and managed to control the situation before it snowballing to a bigger conflict. “No one suffered serious injuries. The arrested people have been sent to judicial custody,” said Kumar.

The accused have been identified as Yogesh, Jitender and Sunil, who are from Alipur village. DHVBN officials had removed illegal connections from their home. A case was registered under Section 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from performing his duty), 147 (punishment for rioting), 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC at Bhondsi police station.