Bengaluru, Jun 23 (IANS): After seeing a bulldozer parked for a year on a roadside, two miscreants hit upon an idea to break it into pieces and then sold it to a scrap dealer, said the police on Wednesday.
The police have arrested Pavan, after the bulldozer owner who is a road construction contractor, Selvaraj from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu lodged a complaint.
The main culprit, Bharat and the scrap dealer, Ismail, who had purchased the pieces, are still at large, added the police.
"Selvaraj, a road contractor from Tamil Nadu often did road works in Bengaluru, but he lived in his home district, Tirunelveli, though he had a house here, but it was used during his transit. Since March last year, he had stopped coming to Bengaluru completely as work had come to stand still here. Therefore, he had asked his people to park the bulldozer near his house on a road in Nagarabhavi," said the police.
Nagarabhavi is located between Mysore Road and Magadi road and is part of Western suburb of Bengaluru.
After seeing this bulldozer parked on road for more than year, Bharat hit upon idea that the bulldozer could be sold by cutting it into pieces and along with his welder friend, Pavan, broke the whole bulldozer into sizeable pieces and sold these pieces to scrap dealer Ismail at Rs 28 per kg.
"They sold metal pieces weighing 7,500 kgs to the scrap dealer, besides the engine but left three drums (wheels) which they could not move," explained the police.
The police said that this theft came to light when Selvaraj, the contractor, came to his transit house on June 18. He filed a complaint after seeing his bulldozer cut into pieces.
"Selvaraj had purchased this bulldozer at cost Rs 5.5 lakh from another contractor in Tamil Nadu and moved it to Bengaluru in order to cater to growing demand in Bengaluru," said the police.
On his part, Ismail had dismantled bulldozer's engine and sold parts to other dealers and even he was able to dispose of some of the huge metal pieces, claimed the police.
The police have slapped a vehicle theft case against three accused persons and are investigating.