Power bill defaulter assaults discom staff

4 BRPL employees 'confined' to room

Four BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd employees, including a 52-year-old man, were beaten up when they went to collect a pending electricity bill of Rs 91,400 at a house in south-east Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar on Thursday, police said.

BSES Rajdhani Power is one of the associate companies of Reliance Energy Limited. Along with BSES Yamuna Power, it supplies electricity to areas in and around south and west Delhi.

According to police, Devendra Kumar and Pawan Kumar of the recovery section with BSES Rajdhani’s Nizammudin office along with line-men Vijay Pratap and Sahib Singh underwent treatment at AIIMS Trauma Centre. They were at the house of Subhash Saluja in Lajpat Nagar phase-3 when the incident occurred at around 1.30 pm.

“They were ordered to collect pending bill of Rs 91,400 and had authority to disconnect electricity supply to Subhash’s house,” a police officer said.

In his statement to police, Devendra claims that Subhash was informed about the order through several notices. Subhash, however, did not make any payment and made false promises to several BSES Rajdhani Power teams which visited his house.

On Thursday, Devendra and his team members reached his house at around 12.30 pm, but Subhash and his family members were not present. “A security guard met the team and told them to wait till Subhash’s wife arrived,” the officer added.

Soon, his wife returned home and told the team to wait as she was ready to pay the bill. “However, no payment was made even after they kept waiting for more than 30 minutes,” the officer said.

The team then disconnected their electricity supply, and was about to leave when Subhash came at around 1.30 pm.

“Subhash asked the team to reconnect the electricity supply and invited them inside the house,” the officer added. It is alleged that Devendra, Pawan, Vijay and Sahib were confined to the drawing room of the house and beaten up by Subhash and three of his associates.

A case has been filed with Lajpat Nagar police station.

“We are yet to arrest the accused. They face charges of wrongful confinement and assault to deter public servant from discharge of duty,” the officer added.