A group of men has been arrested for posing as BSNL employees and stealing underground cables pretending to be doing repair work, police said.
According to the police, they received a complaint from an official of the rank of divisional engineer of the BSNL, mentioning that underground cables worth lakhs of rupees had been stolen from the Haridevpur area.
“We received the complaint on Saturday. We tracked a group of men were impersonating BSNL employees, digging roads at night and removing cables to steal the copper inside them,” said a senior officer of Haridevpur police station.
The group, the police said, was well-organised and comprised men from Bihar who came to Calcutta to steal copper from underground telephone lines.
So far, 10 persons have been arrested in connection with this case.
“Stolen cable, soil digging machinery, safety gears, several spades, and iron instruments were seized from them. One goods vehicle, used by the miscreants for transportation of the stolen items, was also seized,” said the officer.
Police said they have launched a search for the other members of the gang and the suspected boss of the gang.
A senior officer of the southwest division of Kolkata Police said this was a “relatively new” method to steal underground wires. Posing as BSNL employees meant people would not suspect the group members as thieves.
Sources said this is not the first time telephone cables laid under the ground have been chopped off to extract copper from inside them.
But the fact that an organised racket was working in the guise of BSNL employees shocked police officers.