Man held with stolen telecom equipment worth Rs 15 crore in Meerut

Bareilly: A 30-year-old man was arrested in Meerut for allegedly being part of an inter-state gang involved in large-scale theft of telecom equipment, police said on Monday.Acting jointly, the SWAT team and Lohiya Nagar police arrested Mohd Shahrukh from Zakir Colony and seized 237 Base Band Unit (BBU) devices and 156 copper cards worth over Rs 15.4 crore.Police said the accused was running an organised network, supplying stolen equipment across states for hefty profits.The case came to light following a complaint by Pravendra Kumar Tomar, a security supervisor associated with Indus Towers and Bharti Airtel Ltd, who flagged repeated thefts from telecom towers across Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Technical surveillance later traced the stolen equipment to Meerut, leading to the raid.Preliminary investigations revealed that the gang operated across multiple districts in Punjab, including Bathinda, Firozpur, Fatehgarh Sahib, Sangrur, and Jalandhar, as well as parts of Uttar Pradesh such as Moradabad.Senior Superintendent of Police Avinash Pandey said, “The recovery is worth over Rs 15 crore. Efforts are on to arrest other gang members. Further probe is on,” adding, “Based on the complaint, an FIR was filed under BNS sections 303 (theft) and 317 (stolen property).”