Hyderabad: The Abids police on Tuesday arrested two persons who had been stealing batteries from traffic signals for several months. Two others were taken into custody for selling the batteries.
In all, the duo — Shaik Azeemuddin alias Azeem and Jangala Madileti — had allegedly stolen 26 big and 48 small batteries from 19 traffic junctions in the city and 11 junctions of Rachakonda and Cyberabad commissionerates. Police recovered Rs 5 lakh from the duo.
Police said the duo was tracked down by Abids constables M. Ravi Kumar Yadav, K. Ratan and G. Ratan over a period of three days. Ratan said they tracked an autorickchsaw seen near a traffic signal from where a battery was stolen. “We went through footage from 130 CCTV cameras and traced the accused with the help of their autorickshaw registration number,” he said.
The duo sold the batteries to one K. Jayasree in Aramghar, who in turn sold them to Mohammed Moin Khan, who ran a battery manufacturing unit on the city outskirts.
Police have issued a notice to Jayasree, who is pregnant, and took her and Moin Khan into custody.
Police said Azeem and Madileti use to recce the signals during the day. Once they identified their target, they would return between midnight and 4 am.
Azeem, an autorickshaw owner, would drop Maddileti some distance away from the traffic signal. Maddileti would walk over, break upon the lock on the signal, retrieve the batteries and call his partner. Azeem would driver over, and the duo would make way with the loot.
Rachakonda police said they would apply for a prisoner transit warrant to take the arrested into their custody.
