Hyderabad: 2 brothers held for driving away bus, selling it in scrap

Hyderabad: Brothers Syed Abed and Syed Zehad were arrested on Saturday by the Afzalgunj for allegedly stealing an RTC bus from the Imlibun depot and selling it for scrap at Nanded.

Police said the duo got confused about the road and landed up at Bokar, near Nirmal where the bus broke down. They hired a tow truck to take the bus 60 km away to Nanded. That proved to be the breakthrough for the police, joint commissioner M. Ramesh said.

Abed is stated to have a number of cases under different police stations and the PD Act was reportedly invoked against him under the Malakpet police station limits.

Mr Ramesh said the police had formed four teams to track the bus. Based on the fuel it was carrying, the police estimated how far it could travel and alerted the toll plazas on the highways.

At the Toopran plaza, the brothers asked the operator for the route to Nanded. He told them to take a U-turn. They thought it was risky and headed onwards to Nirmal when the bus broke down at Bokar. From there, they had the bus towed to Nanded and handed it over to scrap businessman who quickly dismantled it.

Police commissioner Anjani Kumar said the tip-off that the bus was being towed was important to crack the case. The police rushed to the spot and recovered parts of the bus. If the police had not reached in time, the vehicle would have been completely dismantled and sold.

Police said Abed told them that he had worked in Dubai as a driver.

On April 25, the police had arrested scrap merchant Mohammed Naweed, a relative of the brothers, and gas cutting operators Mohammed Zubair, Mohd. Omer, Syed Salman, 22, Mohd. Shafiq, 23, Md. Kaleem Bagwan, 23. Another accused, Farooq, is yet to be nabbed.

The brothers reportedly took Rs 60,000 from Naweed for the bus of which the cops could only recover Rs 19,000.