A Telangana State Transport Corporation bus parked at the Central Bus Station here was stolen. The Kushaiguda depot express bus went missing on the wee hours of Wednesday only to be found completely dismantled and gone but for the wheels in Nanded in Maharashtra 284 km from here on Thursday evening.

According to TSRTC officials, the bus driver and conductor left the bus at the Central Bus Station here and went to the resting room to take a nap. They found the bus missing after they woke up on Thursday. The police immediately formed teams to trace the bus. The police after looking into hours of CCTV footage of all the toll gates leading out of the city traced the bus near Toopran on the way to Nizamabad, Adilabad and Nanded. Police teams from the Sultan Bazaar division immediately rushed to Nanded. 

In Nanded, the Telangana police with the help of their counterparts in Maharashtra traced the remains of the bus at a secluded place. They were surprised to see that the culprits have cut the bus body using gas cutters and except tyres, rest of the vehicle was dismantled. “The operation was so professional that nothing that can be called as an express bus was left. No seats, no wiring, no lights and no nuts and bolts,” a TSRTC employee said.

The police pointed out that only two persons have completed the whole operation by driving the distance between Hyderabad and Nanded in just four hours. The two joined by five others at Nanded first separated the engine and moved it to some other place in an auto. They then dismantled every part and sold it as scrap.

Meanwhile, state transportation minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy instructed the RTC authorities to heighten security in all major bus depots. “Lack of sufficient security at the massive CBC is the main reason for the theft,” Reddy said. However he said that action will be initiated on those that failed to provide security at the CBS, he said.