Gang of thieves busted by Sangrur police

The Sangrur district police today claimed to have busted a gang of thieves, allegedly involved in about 100 thefts of GUC-1 devices from base transceiver stations (BTSs) of mobile phone towers in seven districts of Punjab.

The police have arrested four members of the gang, while two persons have also been nominated in the case as accused.

The police have reportedly seized from their possession 31 GUC-1 cards (Rs 2.50 lakh each) and a Swift Dzire car, allegedly used by the accused for loading the material, stolen by them from the mobile phone towers.

Superintendent of Police (Punjab Bureau of Investigation), Sangrur, Navreet Singh Virk, said here today that in this case the police had arrested Ram Karan Singh and Avtar Singh, both residents of Akoi Sahib village, near Sangrur, and Prem Singh and Rupinder Singh, both residents of Benra village, near Dhuri. Besides, during the interrogation of these four accused, the police had also nominated two more persons, namely Prince, a resident of Patiala, and Lovepreet Singh, a resident of Benra (Dhuri) in this case, who were yet to be arrested, he added.

The SP (PBI) Virk further said that all four arrested persons were working in different telecom companies and they had been arrested by the police from the jurisdiction of Benra village. They had been produced in a court on June 13 that had remanded them in police custody for three days. A case had been registered in connection with thefts of GUC-1 devices of mobile phone towers on May 30 under Sections 303 (2) and 317 (2) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the Cheema police station, he added.

The SP (PBI) said the arrested persons had admitted that they had committed around 100 thefts of the GUC (1) devices from mobile phone towers in Sangrur, Barnala, Bathinda, Moga, Mansa, Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib districts. He said the police had seized from them 31 GUC-1 devices, stolen from the mobile phone towers, and the cost of each GUC-1 device is Rs 2.50 lakh. Besides, the police had also recovered a Swift Dzire car from them.

The SP (PBI) said the police were questioning these four accused and it was expected that more recoveries might be made by cops. He said the accused Prem Singh was the mastermind of the gang while they sold the stolen GUC-1 devices to Prince. After the arrest of Prince, further inquiries would be done, he added.

Punjab