HEAVY LIFTING

Scrap Metal Thieves Steal 500-Ton Iron Bridge From Indian Village

Gang posed as government officials and removed structure.

Wily scrap-metal thieves posed as government officials to dismantle and steal a 500-ton iron bridge in a remote Indian village. “People came with heavy machinery, gas cutters, and worked for two days during the daytime to dismantle the bridge,” Gandhi Chaudhary, 29, a villager said of the thieves’ removal of the defunct bridge in Amiyawar, a village in the eastern state of Bihar. The thieves claimed they were working for the state’s irrigation department. Only later did the villagers realize that they were impostors and report the theft to local officials, “who themselves were surprised,” Ajit Kumar, a local journalist, told The Hindu. “An inquiry has been ordered and we are investigating how and when the bridge was stolen,” said Nasriganj police official Subhash Kumar.