AURANGABAD, Dec. 11 -- Aurangabad Police, in a joint operation with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), busted the notorious inter-state "Tarzan Ramesh" gang on Wednesday, officials said. The gang was allegedly involved in stealing copper wire cables worth Rs.3.5 crore from NTPC's Transmission Sub-Station (TSS) at Sone Nagar. According to police, the gang leader and 15 members - 14 from West Bengal and one from Jharkhand - were arrested. Three vehicles and 12 quintals of copper wire were recovered. The gang had also carried out thefts in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and several districts of Bihar, Aurangabad Sadar Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Sanjay Kumar Pandey said. On August 23, Abhijeet Jeevan Ingle, HR executive of Blue Star Company, which is installing TSS for consumer power supply from NTPC's Nabinagar plant, had informed police about the theft of copper wire cables, transformer oil and other equipment worth Rs.3.5 crore from the Sone Nagar TSS campus. A case was registered against unidentified persons, and Aurangabad Superintendent of Police (SP) Ambrish Rahul formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the supervision of the Sadar SDPO. After over two months of technical analysis and intelligence gathering, the SIT got a breakthrough on Tuesday when a gang member was traced and arrested with a copper-laden pick-up van hidden behind Sone Nagar railway station. Subsequently, 14 others were arrested from Sone Nagar, Bhawar and Keshavpur. The police recovered 12 quintals of copper wires, two SUVs with West Bengal registration numbers, a pick-up van and eight mobile phones, the SDPO said. The arrested accused include gang leaders Tiger Choudhary (39) and Ramesh Choudhary, and members Vishwajit Choudhary, Dinesh Choudhary, Rajesh Choudhary, Suraj Gupta, Tapas Choudhary, Aman Kumar, Mohammad Alam Mian, Rajan Chaudhary, Dinesh Choudhary, Anil Singh, Jitendra Jha and Jiut Choudhary, all from various areas of East Bardhaman, West Bardhaman and Nadia districts of West Bengal. Lalan Choudhari of Girbari in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand was also arrested. Police said the gang, named after its two leaders, operated with a unique modus operandi. After conducting reconnaissance, members travelled to the target location in two SUVs and a pick-up van around 7 pm. They switched off their mobile phones 3-40 km before the crime scene to avoid surveillance, and later sold the stolen copper to a scrap dealer in Jyoti Nagar, Bardhaman. The gang had previously committed thefts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Samastipur, Sakdi and Pandaul. It had also dropped and stolen valuable goods from the Sampark Kranti Express near Anugrah Narayan Road station two months ago. Continuous raids are being conducted to arrest the gang's facilitators and linked scrap dealers, the SDPO added....