DHARMANAGAR: A night guard foiled an attempted theft of government textbooks from the warehouse of the School Inspector’s office here in the early hours of Monday, leading to the arrest of one person.
The accused, identified as Mithun Das of Teliamura in Khowai district, was caught red-handed by night guard Raju Baspar around 2 AM as he was removing textbooks from the warehouse and stacking them near the boundary wall, police said. He was handed over to Dharmanagar police station on Tuesday morning.
Das initially claimed he had entered the premises while intoxicated and worked as a scrap bottle collector, but later admitted during questioning that he had entered with the intention to steal, sources said.
The School Inspector said a shortage of textbooks had been noticed at the warehouse for some time, and the incident suggests recurring theft may be behind it. Dharmanagar town has recently seen a rise in nighttime thefts of items such as AC pipes and electrical wires from homes, offices, and businesses, with several cases still unsolved despite CCTV evidence.