When educated youth pilfer Sahitya Sabha ...

DIBRUGARH, February 16 : The police here have till Tuesday evening rounded up twelve youth on charges of stealing corrugated galvanized iron sheets from the Sahityarathi Kshetra in the wee hours of Monday. A total of 137 sheet have already been recovered and the police believe that the thieves may have hidden more such sheets. This is contrary to the claim by Sahitya Sabha officials here that more than a thousand CGI sheets have been stolen from the 66th session venue early on Monday morning. The police who are on a hot pursuit of the case, expect to arrest half a dozen more thieves as those who have been arrested and sent to jail have given out names of their accomplices. Apart from the CGI sheets, quite a few tubewells have been stolen by miscreants soon after the session came to an end, and even as thousands were enjoying the cultural show which was on at the main pandal. The telecom people here said today that seven BPL telephone sets have been stolen from the Sahityarathi Kshetra. Those who have been arrested by the police and forwarded to trial are not professional thieves. Most of them were shop keepers at the commercial sites of the Sahityarathi Kshetra, and resorted to the pilferage "to take revenge on the session's reception committee". They have been complaining of mismanagement of the commercial venues, and were warning of this sort of a fallout on the first day of the session, on February 7. This explains why most of those arrested are educated youth, with no past crime record.