Discom engineer, staff flag power theft; chased & thrashed

GURGAON: A man and his son allegedly thrashed a DHBVN junior engineer and held a foreman captive for over an hour after the two discom staffers pointed out power theft at their house in Durga Colony on Monday.

Police said on Tuesday that the two staffers were inspecting houses in the colony to check if the old electricity meters were being used. DHBVN is supposed to install nearly 5 lakh smart meters in Gurgaon and Faridabad by the end of this year.

JE Sanket Kataria and Adesh were checking a three-storey building owned by Satbeer Thakran, when they saw that an external cable was connected to the MCB. Satbeer rents out 50 rooms in the building.

As the staffers pointed this out and started making a video, Satbeer and his son started thrashing them with pipes and sticks, the JE said. They also tore the list of consumers given for replacement of old meters.

“We saw that the consumer was stealing electricity by not letting the load information reach the meter. As I was recording the video, Satbeer called his son and the duo attacked us. Soon after, a few more men from the locality came and chased us with sticks in their hands,” the junior engineer said.

Sanket said he managed to escape after being chased for around 300 metres, but the group caught hold of Adesh.

“I somehow ran to safety. I went into the lanes of Sector 39 to lose the men. I then called up the sub-divisional officer and informed him about Adesh being taken captive,” he said.

The SDO came with a team of cops from the Sadar police station. “Adesh was in the colony, not too far from Satbeer’s house, for about an hour till police came and rescued him. He was beaten up in that period,” the junior engineer said.

Cops said Sanket had wounds on his head, leg, waist, arms and hands, Adesh was more seriously injured. Both of them are being treated at the government hospital in Sector 10.

A case was registered against Satbeer, his son and others allegedly involved in the attack. They were booked under sections 332 (voluntarily causing harm to public servant to deter from discharging duty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 186 (obstructing public servant from duty), 379 (theft), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

Sadar police station SHO Subhash Chand told TOI, “We have registered an FIR and are probing the incident. The accused were not present when we reached the spot. We are identifying the others involved.”