3 more held for copper wire heist from Hyd Command Control Centre

HYDERABAD: The police, who were left red-faced after the theft of Rs 38 lakh worth of copper cables from Command Control Centre, a state-of-the-art police facility coming up in Hyderabad, have arrested six of the seven accused in the case including the kingpin, the driver of the ambulance Sonu Khan.

The police are yet to arrest one person - stores in charge Shekhar - at the CCC. The theft which took place little by little over a period of time came to light about 10 days ago. Ambulance Driver Sonu Kham has been working at the CCC for the last four years. He lured stores in charge Shanker Kumar into pilfering copper wire bundles which he sold in the market. Sonu Khan used to take the copper bundles in his ambulance which was allotted for use for emergency purposes.

The number of arrested reached six after the Banjara Hills police arrested three offenders on Wednesday. The sixth accused, storekeeper Shanker Kumar,  is still at large. The arrested included three receivers of the stolen property. The other three were Sunu Khan, and security guard Sourabh Khan security supervisor Bikash Ranjan Behra. They were all hired by Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Limited which is constructing the command control centre.

According to police, Sonu Khan initially lured storekeeper Shanker Kumar to steal copper wires. Their first theft took place on April 21 and pilferage continued till May 31 in small quantities to avoid detection by the supervisors. Sonu Khan contacted three scrap dealers and struck a deal to sell the wires. Sourabh along with Ranjan helped Sonu Khan in the theft.

Ten days after the thefts were first noticed, the project manager lodged a complaint with the police. The police, who knew instinctively that it was an inside job, focused on storekeeper Shanker who is on the run. The police investigation followed the clues they obtained by watching the CCTV footage which recorded the furtive and suspicious movements of the accused at night in the vicinity of CCC.