Six criminals dressed as municipal workers excavated a roughly 200-meter section of Mumbai's sidewalk and road to steal copper wire from Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited's (MTNL) underground phone wires.

The ₹6.80 lakh theft was found after MTNL customers claimed that their landline phones were not functioning.

To escape suspicion, the thieves had dug manually at night before being apprehended by the Matunga police. To make sure that their efforts remained unnoticed, they erected roadblocks marked with signs declaring that BMC was engaged in community service. The police retrieved 184 kg of stolen copper from the accused after the stolen copper cables were sold.

Mumbai
Image Source: Live Law

Following MTNL's May 31 report to the Matunga police, the inquiry got underway. Sub-Inspector Santosh Mali and his colleagues have been tracing the suspects for the past week by scanning CCTV footage and employing human intelligence, all under the supervision of Senior Inspector Deepak Chavan. Manish Maganlal Jain, Nikku Chanilal Gupta, Mahesh Mallesh Budamula, Ashok Ramesh Suryavanshi, and Kailas Devdutt Jadhav were named as the accused. Niku Chunilal Gupta is the scrap dealer who purchased the stolen copper wire.

According to the authorities, the robbers had carefully planned the heist and dug up a little section of the sidewalk and road each day.

The robbers had co-conspirators according to the investigation, and the police are currently looking for them.

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