About 1,000 families living in the Kavla Bunder slum pocket get water daily from these pipes. They made 40 holes within a distance of 50 feet, with each hole located at a distance of around one foot from the next. The Sewri police has identified about 35 persons who are likely to be booked and arrested in the case. But after I was posted here earlier this year, I suspected something fishy was going on and decided to dig deep," added Mr Trivedi. The slum dwellers in turn sell about 5,000 litres of water to vessels and ships that come to the port. 

The BPT authorities were really troubled by this water mafia as they pay the BMC for this water." "The BEST had complained to Sewri police in the past after which the illegal electricity used to be cut off. Police sources also said that such a well-planned racket couldn’t be operated for years without the consent of some corrupt authorities, including policemen. Even if each was provided with 100 litres of water they were stealing around 1 lakh litres of water every day.The Sewri police earlier this week unearthed a water theft racket operating for an unknown number of years in Central Mumbai. 

The thieves had made 40 holes in a large BMC water pipeline, which provides water to Bombay Port wholesale electric tap Trust and passes through the Sewree area. As the water is sold cheap the sailors buy it from them for drinking purposes. We have no idea for how many years this water mafia has been operating. They then got 35 electric motors to pump this water out from the pipe line using electricity stolen from BEST.

Senior police inspector Rajendra Trivedi of Sewri police said, "We carried out the joint operation along with officials from BPT and BEST

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