Speakers, woofers stolen from Sarnath

Varanasi, Sep 25 (IANS) In a shocking incident, the speakers and woofers of the ambitious light and sound show project have been stolen from the high security Archaeological Survey of India protected site of Sarnath’s Dhamekh Stupa in Varanasi.

The Sarnath Police have lodged an FIR against unidentified miscreants in this connection on the complaint of the Rajkiya Nirman Nigam (RNN) project manager.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Amit Pathak said that an FIR under section 379 (theft) of IPC has been lodged with Sarnath Police and teams have been formed to work out the case at the earliest. Police have also sought CCTV footage from ASI, he said.

Contractor Shatrughan Singh, who lodged the complaint on the behalf of RNN on Thursday, said, “I along with technical staff had gone to the site to check the speaker boxes following rains when we found some boxes unscrewed and equipment worth Rs 10 lakh, including four speakers of Rs 1.25 lakh each and woofers missing.”

The ASI officials said that the security guards deployed for protecting Dhamekh Stupa and other structures, were monitoring the entry and exit of people engaged by RNN but they had not been authorized to check the articles being carried by them.

The commissioner, Deepak Agarwal, termed the theft incident as ‘shocking’ and said that the project has been completed and is in the phase of trial.

–IANS

amita/dpb