Mrt Thief Braved 750 Volt Power Rail To Steal Cables

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PETALING JAYA: The suspected MRT cable thief who was apprehended by RapidKL auxiliary police on Wednesday (Jan 23) could have been fatally electrocuted by 750 volts of electricity when he intruded onto the tracks
RapidKL MRT chief operating officer Azmi Mohd Zain said the suspect had built an illegal makeshift ladder in an unfenced section along the 51km Sungai Buloh-Kajang line to climb onto the tracks
During a press conference on Thursday (Jan 24), Azmi explained that the auxiliary police team detected the ladder on Jan 21 and launched 'Ops Hendap Kabel' to catch the thief in action
Then on Jan 23, a sharp-eyed auxiliary policeman spotted a red object underneath the tracks near Pusat Bandar Damansara station at 9.44am.

When an emergency team was deployed to identify and retrieve the object, they were surprised to find that it was a 45-year-old man crawling barely a few inches below a high voltage power rail while the train service was in full swing.

The suspect had crawled for about 400m before he was caught and handed over to the police, causing a 45-minute delay in train service."If he had accidentally touched the power rail, he could have been fatally electrocuted... It would also have caused service disruption," Azmi said."We expect theft activities to happen during engineering hours (after the MRT cease operations), but this happened during revenue hours (operation hours), so this is a very serious incident," he added
While this was the first reported cable theft incident of the year, RapidRail CEO Khairani Mohamad said they had recorded a total of RM5mil to RM6mil in losses since the MRT started operations in 2016
In 2018, there were eight reported cases of cable thefts all of which targeted copper cables, he said. The public transportation system is only two years old, but already battling cases of theft and vandalism
"Some of the issues we are facing are graffiti on the pillars, illegal ubat kuat and Ah Long posters and, most recently, the water taps in a station toilet being stolen," Khairani said
He added that they were now reviewing track security, the placement of cables, and the reinforcement of doors and fences to prevent another intrusion
"We are also looking into an initiative modelled after Rakan Cop, where we engage with local communities living near MRT tracks to report any suspicious activities," he said
"This is one way to go forward as we built this MRT for the people and it belongs to the people... So let us all have ownership over it," he added
On Wednesday, RapidKL said they experienced a track intrusion between Pusat Bandar Damansara and Phileo Damansara stations, and announced that power was subsequently "de-energised" for safety reasons.- Star

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