An iron bridge over a canal has disappeared in the Rohtas district of India. India Ahead News
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A 550-ton bridge in India has been stolen by a gang of thieves, according to the Asian News International (ANI).
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The men dismantled the bridge in broad daylight, ANI reported.
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Two government officials and a local politician were later arrested, according to The Times of India.
A gang of thieves stole a 60-foot-long, 550-ton bridge in northeast India because of its lucrative scrap value, according to the Indian News Agency (ANI).
Police have arrested eight men, including two government officials, a police official said, according to ANI.
“We have arrested eight people, including the SDO (unit) of the water department, in connection with the theft of the bridge,” Rohtas police superintendent Ashish Bharti told ANI.
“The thieves stole the bridge in complicity with SDO. We took a JCB, stolen iron channels weighing about 247 kg and other material, “Bharti continued.
The iron bridge over the Ara-Sone canal in Bihar, which was in poor condition after not being used since the early 2000s, was dismantled in three days on April 3rd, BBC News reported.
The gang wore government uniforms to avoid suspicion as it worked in broad daylight from 7 a.m. every day, using cutting torches and excavators to tear it apart, BBC News reported.
People in the village of Amiyavar did not notice the theft, the media reported. “No one suspected it was a robbery,” local journalist Jitendra Singh told the BBC.
In fact, the media reported that some villagers were happy that the abandoned bridge had finally been removed.
A phone call to the irrigation department on April 5 from Pavan Kumar, a man from a nearby village, was what the police reported about the crime. Kumar turned to local authorities to ask why the procedures for removing the bridge were not being followed, BBC News reported.
Police then launched an investigation and conducted searches after finding out that the authorities had not issued an order to dismantle the bridge, media reported.
The story continues
Eight people were arrested, including government officials and a local politician.
Radhe Sham Singh, a unit officer, was arrested by The Times of India, as was Arvin Kumar, who worked part-time in the irrigation department, and told passersby that the work had an “official sanction”, according to the BBC. .
Among those arrested was Shivkalyan Bhardvaj, a bloc-level leader of the Indian Socialist Party Rashtriya Janata Dahl, The Times of India reported.
Four of the other detainees worked in the scrap industry. Selling scrap metal to illegal factories could be a very lucrative business in India, according to Reuters.
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