Unidentified thieves took away a mobile tower in Patna's Sabzi Bagh locality after posing as employees of the service provider, an official said.
The mobile tower was installed in a house in 2006 by service provider company AIRCEL and sold to GTL company PVT LTD.
The incident came to light during the inspection of the mobile towers. An FIR has been registered on the statement of Company's area manager Mohammad Shahnawaz Anwar against unknown persons.
As per the complaint, the company had done its last inspection on August 31, 2022. At that time, the mobile tower was present there. The company has done a second inspection recently and then tower was found to be missing.
"When the company officials enquired about the incident, the house owner informed that some persons who claimed to be employees of GTL company came here four months ago and removed the tower. They have given the excuse that the tower was having a massive technical glitch and a new tower will be installed soon. They have laden the equipment on the truck and taken it away," said an official of Pirbahore police station.
The local police are investigating the matter but as the mobile tower was stolen four months ago, the CCTV footage is not available to identify the accused.
GTL provides services to other cellular service provider companies. They have the equipment installed in the tower.
Sabih-Ul-Haq, the SHO of Pirbahore police station said that the GTL company has not paid rent to the house owner for the past few months. The company officials also failed to inspect the towers and the equipment installed in it.
"As the GTL company was not paying the rent, the house owner asked them to remove the tower. Inititally, the GTL company removed part of the equipment. After that, another team came and removed all the equipment," he said.
Now, the GTL company is saying that its employees have not removed the equipment the second time," the SHO further said.
The cost of stolen equipment is Rs 8,32,000.