5 nabbed for stealing Army shell casings in MP

Hoshangabad (MP), July 27: With the arrest of five persons, police have recovered 90 shell casings stolen from the Army's Taku Proving Range at Itarsi in this district.

Mishrilal, Ramsingh, Dorilal, Omprakash and Sukhlal -- residents of Lalpani village near the range -- were apprehended yesterday.

Jaswant, who purchased the casings, and three others are absconding.

Kesla Station House Officer S L Sonia and Itarsi's Sub-Divisional Officer (Police) T K Vidyarthi said a case was registered on July 17 following a complaint lodged by Lieutenant-Colonel K C Kalita.

''Raids were carried out on scrap-dealers' premises in the area,'' Assistant Sub-Inspector Tejraj Singh said earlier.

The theft served as a reminder of 40 casings of 81 mm anti-tank mortar bombs being offloaded by unidentified persons on January 4, along the Bhopal-Nagpur National Highway 69, while being trucked from an ordnance factory in Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, to a counterpart unit at Chandrapur in Maharashtra.

That incident occurred near Baretha Ghat about 15 km from Betul district town and was inquired into by the Army.

It was earlier believed that only four casings were missing.

Betul's Superintendent of Police Vijay Suryavanshi had said that prima facie it appeared as if some gang was behind the theft.

The privately-owned lorry was also carrying 18 bales of cotton to be offloaded at Nagpur. The incident took place between 0500 and 0600 hrs when the vehicle slowed down.

In his police complaint, driver Sanjay Yadav said he became aware of the crime when he halted for a check after crossing the ghat. Four boxes, containing the casings and placed at the truck's rear, were missing.

Soon after receiving information, police formed teams and initiated an investigation.

''The incident is not distressing from the security point of view as the casings were empty,'' the Muradnagar unit's Additional General Manager R K Sharma had told UNI over telephone.

Such thefts were commonplace at Baretha Ghat.

UNI