The Nigeria Railway Police Command has paraded 14 suspects, including two policemen, for theft of railway property in its Eastern corridors.
Speaking while parading the suspects in Enugu, Mr Henry Njoku, area commander of Eastern District Police Command, said the suspects included two policemen.
The two officers, according to Njoku, will face orderly room trial, adding that if guilty, they will be dismissed, and charged to court with the other suspects.
Njoku said the command achieved this through painstaking intelligence and investigation in the last two months.
He said most of the suspects were nabbed on September 15 between 12 midnight and 2 am.
The police chief said they were caught stealing heavy irons of brake system control, wagon parts, wagon wheels, clips of rail slippers, rail slippers, armoured railway doors, zinc sheet of railway stations, rail cables etc.
The area commander noted that that there are many vandals within Isiagu-Uzuakoli-Mbaeke-Umuhia sections and Emene-Ogui-Ogbete sections of the Eastern corridors.
“We are strategising to ensure that we put a stop to these growing trend of sabotage to the economy of the nation and denying the people of these part of the country opportunity to enjoy train services.
“The property vandalised and stolen, including the ones recovered, will runs into multi-millions of dollars,’’ he said.
The police recovered five tricycles, a jeep, two mini-buses and two trucks used for conveying the stolen items as well as four gas cylinders and a very big cutter used directly for their operations,” he said.