Representative image of a bus shelter.
Credit: DH Photo
Vehicles getting stolen is quite a common occurrence in India, but this time, to the surprise of officials and commuters alike, an entire bus shelter has been reported stolen from Cunningham Road in Bengaluru, that too from behind the city police commissioner's office and within a kilometre of the state legislative assembly — the Vidhan Soudha.
The bus shelter, which Times of India has reported to have cost Rs 10 lakh, was a stainless steel structure. Report of the theft was filed only a month later.
N Ravi Reddy, an official of the company assigned with the manufacture of such bus shelters, filed a complaint with the High Grounds Police station on September 30.
Police are reportedly going through CCTV footage from buildings in the area as part of their investigations.
"Most commercial establishments have CCTV footage that can store recordings for one month and it gets automatically deleted afterwards. Once we get the footage, we can trace the miscreants and crack the case," a police official told the publication.
The report filed by Reddy states, "We undertake the work of constructing bus shelters in the city for BBMP. Accordingly, we had constructed this particular bus shelter (close to Coffee Day) on Cunningham Road on August 21. It was a stainless-steel structure. The cost of the shelter was Rs 10 lakh. However, on visiting the shelter on August 28, we found it missing. We enquired with BBMP officials and asked them whether they have any information on the removal of the shelter and they said no. Finally, we decided to lodge a police complaint."
The shelter in question was a regular stop for commuters going towards Hennur, Banasawadi, Lingarajapuram, Gangenahalli, Bhoopasandra, Pulikeshinagar, Hebbal, and Yelahanka.