Investigation revealed that the accused, B Jayaprakash (41) of Ayanavaram, is a field engineer of a private telecom company. However, the employee ID card seized from him showed that he was the employee of a different telecom firm, contradicting his claim.

Following theft of CT boxes from BSNL pillars in and around Ayanavaran and Korattur, which resulted in interruption of services to several government organisations and schools in the locality, BSNL staff had increased vigil to catch the thieves.

On Saturday morning, they caught Jayaprakash red-handed while damaging a pillar in Korattur

and handed him over to police. During interrogation, he reportedly told the police that he opened the BSNL pillar by mistake instead of pillars belonging to his organisation located next to BSNL pillars.

Meanwhile, Ayanavaram police too received a complaint from BSNL over the theft. Officials

are investigating if Jayaprakash is behind both incidents or if he is part of a team that is indulged in damaging BSNL properties to make its customers move to the private firm as alleged by BSNL.