SINGTAM POLICE NAB 12 CABLE CHORS

SINGTAM, June 6: The Singtam Police has arrested 12 persons in connection with cable theft in the area.

Following many complaints lodged by the BSNL with the Police over the regular thefts of optical fibre cable, especially from remote areas, the Police were on the heels of these offenders for a long time.

On June 2 morning, the Singtam Police found two persons-Sher Bahadur Subba and Bal Bahadur Tamang of Ralep Busty moving around in a suspicious manner. When the Police checked their bags, they found one Khukuri, one Bamfook, a hexa blade and cables worth Rs. 65,000 in them.

Immediately, they were taken to the Singtam Police Station and during interrogation, they revealed that others were also involved in cable theft.

Following the lead, the Police arrested Chandu Rai, Passang Tamang, Karan Bahadur Rai, Karna Bahadur Rai, Arun Mangar, Tara Subba, Lal Bahadur Thapa, Gopal Rai, Nim Tshering Tamang, Lakpa Sherpa, Phurba Tamang and Subash Darjee. Subsequently, this led to the revelation of two more involved in this crime- Mahar Singh and Amesh Lama of Gorubathan in West Bengal. The Police are on the lookout for these two.

The main accused behind the cable theft is suspected to be Nim Tshering who apparently buys the stolen cables for Rs. 130 per KG and also provides his own vehicle for the transportation of the cables. He then used to sell the cables to scarp dealers in Singtam and Siliguri. A local scrap dealer from Singtam-Sukram Tamang was called to the Singtam Police Station for interrogation in this connection.

Most of the arrested are labourers in various projects in and around Singtam. The 12 cable thieves have been arrested under section 379 of IPC.