Strange! Pond stolen overnight in India's Bihar, hut constructed over it

The Indian state of Bihar has been making headlines recently for its bizarre thefts. After a bridge and a train engine, thieves stole an entire pond. Locals of the Darbhanga district were baffled as the pond vanished and someone built a hut over the leftover area.

The sudden appearance of a hut prompted locals to inform the police. However, the land mafia, accused of taking over the pond, escaped before the police arrived, NDTV reported.

The residents said the pond was a public property used and maintained for fishing and other activities. However, the surge in land prices in Darbhanga made the land mafia set their eyes on the water body. The locals complained to the authorities after which the zonal officials tried to stop the pond-filing work, but the land mafia continued their work in the dark until the pond was gone. 

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Amit Kumar said, "People say the pond was filled with soil within 10-15 days. The work was done only at night. Officials had visited the spot earlier and even seized some items."

Bihar has witnessed some of the most weird thefts in past years. In November 2022, some thieves stole an entire diesel engine part by part from a railway yard in Begusarai. As per the cops, thieves dug a tunnel into the yard and started stealing the engine's parts. Gradually, they stole the whole engine, which had come for repairs to the railway yard.

In another incident, thieves stole a 60-foot bridge in Rohtas district. The police arrested eight people, including a government officer, and recovered 247 kilograms of iron channels from the accused. Thieves made the bridge disappear in three days, using JCBs and gas cutters to dismantle it. The 500-ton bridge, constructed in 1972 over the Arrah canal in Amiyawar village, was in the Nasriganj police station area.

In April 2023, thieves stole an entire mobile tower in Bihar's Muzaffarpur, installed on a residential building. When officials came to investigate the scene, the resident told them that a few people, claiming to be employees of GTAL, had taken the tower, saying that it was not functional. They removed all the equipment, loaded it on a pick-up van and took it. The estimated value of the stolen equipment was $5,400 (₹4.5 lakhs). However, it was not the first time thieves pulled off a tower heist in Bihar. In Patna, the capital city, a mobile tower was stolen in the Sabji Bagh area.