Mangaluru: Robbers would steal anything and everything that they can lay their eyes on, but in a rather bizarre incidents of robbery, thieves have taken away several batteries from mobile towers, leaving eyebrows raised!
Mangaluru police nabbed five thieves involved in multiple incidents of mobile tower battery robbery.
The arrested are Ganesh from Madikeri, Mohammad Rashid of Kunjattur in Manjeshwar, Sunil of Mallur Kuttikala, Prathap of Bajal Kuttadka and Avinash of Moddusheede near Vamanjoor.
In a complaint, the field officer of Indus mobile towers in Mangaluru and Udupi had stated that batteries were found missing on August 19 and missing batteries were numbered at 24, approximately costing Rs 60,000 to Vodafone from Mallur Vodafone tower base.
Based on a tip-off the police team managed to nab the accused on August 23 near Nandini milk dairy in Kulshekar at 4.30 am. The police managed to seize vehicles employed in the theft including a Maruti Omni van bearing no. KA19 MC 3777 and Tata Sumo KA 20 C 0085 along with stolen items valued at 15 lakhs, thereby solving 9 cases of robbery.
However, it was later learnt that the gang had stolen a total of 200 batteries since 2015 in and around Mangaluru and the worth of stolen batteries run into about Rs 12 lakhs.
The accused were produced in the court.
