Hyderabad: A bus of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation was turned into scrap within hours of its theft from the main bus depot in Hyderabad.
The bus which was stolen in the early hours of Wednesday was found cut into pieces in a scrap yard of Nanaded town in Maharashtra, about 240km away from Hyderabad, police said.
Investigation by the police with the help of CCTV footage collected from different exit points in the city led the cops to Nanded where a group of four thieves had driven the bus.
When the police team from Hyderabad raided the yard initially it could not locate the bus. However a detailed inspection of the yard led them to a bare chassis of a vehicle and much to their shock they found it to be of the same bus which was stolen from Hyderabad a few hours ago. On further search of the place police found two route boards of the bus confirming that the bus was ripped apart by the thieves who sold its parts in pieces leaving only the chassis behind.
In a meticulously planned operation the gang of thieves took away the bus from Mahatma Gandhi Bus depot in Imlibun area of Hyderabad where it was parked by the driver and the conductor of the bus at the end of their shift in the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday last.
When the duo returned in the wee hours of Wednesday to resume their shift, the bus was found missing.
Bus driver Venkateshwarulu and the conductor Rahul lodged the complaint with the Afzalgunj police about the bus going missing. The bus No. AP11Z 6254 belonging to Kushaiguda depot was plying on D3 route between Ambedkarnagar and Afzalgunj.
According to police, the gang of thieves used the gas cutters to tear the bus apart and take away the engine and other important parts of the vehicle, abandoning the chassis. The police were questioning the suspects and were trying to identify the thieves including the one who drove the bus. RTC officials put the value of the bus at around Rs2 million (Dh104,952).
