4 gang members arrested in Gujarat for metro cable thefts across multiple cities

The Gandhinagar police on Saturday arrested four members of the Khedka gang, who stole cables from the metro tracks at various places, including Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and Maharashtra, Delhi and Pune, officials said. Police recovered cables worth Rs 18 lakh from the gang, which has committed over 100 thefts across the country so far.

The arrests came as police expedited their investigation after a theft of 700 metres of metro cable was reported at Ahmedabad's old Koba metro station at 2.30 am on June 2. The police also established its links with recent similar thefts in the city.

During the investigation, the police learnt that the accused had rented a car used by them and a flat where they stayed and also kept the stolen cables, which were later cut into pieces.

The police tracked down the gang members with the help of evidence and arrested them before registering a case against relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The four arrested gang members have been identified as Musharraf, Rashid Ismail, Rashid Shabbir and Irshad Malik, all belonging to Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat.

Search for other gang members identified as Shahzad, Aamir, Arif, Ikhlaq, Imran, Arif, Sonu, Arshad, Bilal, Raja and Masoom is underway.

"Four of the thirteen people who were involved in the cable theft have been arrested. The police have recovered the cables stolen from the Gandhinagar metro line. But the cables stolen from Ahmedabad have been transported by the accused to Delhi via train," Gandhinagar SP Ravi Teja Vasamsetty said.

The cable thefts the gang has committed include 14 in Delhi, 12 in Pune and six in Panvel near Mumbai.

Raja Qureshi, a wanted accused from Ghaziabad, was present at the time of the cable theft from the metro line in Ahmedabad's Shahpur and took the cable to Delhi by train where he sold it. Raja receives the stolen cables and takes responsibility for the necessary expenses incurred in stealing them.

HOW THE KHEDKA GANG STEALS CABLES

Members of the Khedka gang visit cities which have metro services. They then rent a room to stay and hide the cable and a hire car as per their needs.

They first do a recce of the metro line from where the cable is to be stolen. After that, the gang members would reach the targeted part of the metro line around 1 am in a rented car and climb up the track with the help of a big tree or a wall. They would first snap the earthing cable of the metro line with a cable cutter to avoid electrocution.

During this period, a few of them wait on the ground to make a bundle of cables, put them in the rented car and take the cable to the rented house. After that, the plastic and rubber parts were removed and the copper wire was separated. It would then be packed and transported to Delhi by train and sold there.

The police also said that Shahbaz and Rashid have been training the rest of their gang members for cable theft for the past 10 years. Raja and Masoom operate this gang from Delhi. Notably, two of their gang members have died during thefts in the past.

The Gandhinagar Crime Branch has now solved the metro cable theft cases in places including Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Pune, Panvel, Bhopal, and Indore, while a Gujarat Police team is investigating the matter further in Delhi.

After the questioning of the accused, the police are hopeful of getting success in solving the cases of metro cable theft across the country, a senior police officer said.