Thieves are making hay as governance apparently becomes the worst victim of the continuing conflicts between the two key ruling NDA partners in Bihar—the BJP and the JD-U. Believe it or not, after selling off the vintage steam engine and then 60-feet steel-framed bridge built over a canal as “scraps”, the carefree-looking thieves have now sold a government hospital in the state.

The incident of sale of the government hospital has been reported from Kurhani block of Muzaffarpur district. Reports said the health sub-centre had been functioning at Muraul village in the district since 1975 but recently the authorities were startled to find a part of the land plot on which the hospital stands having been sold to a local villager. The entire story came to light during the settlement process of the land after receiving an application from the buyers. Finding the matter seriously, the circle officer has put on hold the settlement of the land.

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According to reports, the hospital stands on someone acre of land donated by a local villager late Gopal Sharan Singh. Recently, one Satyendra Kumar Singh sold off 36 dismal of this land plot to four persons, terming it a “residential plot”. But when the circle officer ordered the verification of this land plot before its formal settlement, the land was found to be belonging to the government hospital!

The fresh incident comes barely a fortnight after the thieves sold off a 45-year-old steel bridge weighing some 500 tons after dismantling it in Rohtas district. The daredevilry of the thieves can be underlined by the fact that they dismantled the whole bridge during day hours and had come with gas cutters, JCB machines, and trucks to carry the scraps for sale. What was further interesting, a senior official from the water resources department was found to be the brainchild of the entire theft plan during the course of a probe ordered after the theft of this bridge made headlines. The accused officer has been arrested and sent to jail along with other thieves.

Another such incident took place in the Purnia district where the thieves sold off an entire vantage meter gauge steam engine which was stationed at the local railway station for public display, in December last year. During the investigation, it was later found that a railway engineer had sold the old steam engine on the basis of a forged letter claimed to have been issued by the divisional mechanical engineer, Samastipur division. Here too, gas cutters were used to dismantle the engine and sell them as scrap.