Construction material theft racket: Kingpin held

Kolkata: The kingpin of the construction material theft racket was arrested from Helabattala Jhil Bagan near Hatiyara in New Town.

The arrested person, Raja Jaiswal, headed the group that had stolen materials from an under-construction site of Metro Railways near Financial Hub in Rajarhat on Friday morning.

Besides stealing construction materials from the upcoming New Town Metro station, the racket led by him had allegedly committed the same crime from the site of Sector V Metro station. Raja is being remanded to police custody for six days after he was produced before the court on Thursday.

Acting on a tip off, the police went to Hatiyara and arrested the youth. It may be recalled that earlier they had detained three persons and arrested one.

Investigation revealed that the youth used to do recce of the places before raiding the under-construction sites. He used to take notes on the total number of security personnel posted mainly at night at the construction sites. He used to target the sites where lesser number of security personnel was posted.

After doing recce of the sites and surrounding areas, he used to sit with some members of his gang to chalk out a detailed plan of action. They used to carry out the entire operation as per their plan.

They used to complete the entire operation within a very short span of time and it had become possible for them to escape without getting caught as they were well aware of all the escape routes from the construction sites.

The police had first traced out the place, where they used to take the truck, laden with the stolen materials.

They raided a place near Manicktala and had recovered a major part of the stolen materials.

A police officer said Raja allegedly committed the crime to make easy money.

"We had received similar complaints from some other construction sites as well. It made us believe that a gang was operating in the area and it is the same gang which had been committing the crime at all the mentioned sites," the officer said adding that they started the probe accordingly and came to know about Raja. Investigation further revealed that he is the mastermind behind the entire operation.

Cops are in search of others, who were involved in the crime, along with Raja. They would question Raja to get whereabouts of his associates.