He wasn’t stealing gold or cash. Just cooking gas. But for the families who came home to find their LPG cylinders missing, it stung just the same.
Naharlagun police in Arunachal Pradesh arrested a 30-year-old man on Thursday, September 3, after a careful investigation into a wave of LPG cylinder thefts that had been quietly unnerving residents across the area. When all was said and done, officers had recovered 23 stolen cylinders — all traced back to one man.
The accused, identified as Arjun Juga, a resident of IG Park Colony, was nabbed from Juli Road following what police described as a methodical process of piecing together his modus operandi. It didn’t happen overnight. Investigators studied the pattern of the thefts, connected the dots, and zeroed in on Juga before moving in.
ICR Naharlagun Superintendent of Police Nyelam Nega confirmed that a case was registered against Juga under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Speaking about how the break came, Nega said that after Juga’s interrogation, police launched coordinated raids across several locations — and every single one of the 23 cylinders was recovered. That’s a clean sweep by any measure.
The operation itself was led on the ground by Naharlagun Police Station Officer-in-Charge Inspector Krishnendu Dev, with the team working under the supervision of Sub-Divisional Police Officer Rishi Longdo. It was the kind of disciplined, coordinated police work that doesn’t always make headlines but matters enormously to the people living in these neighbourhoods.
Twenty-three cylinders might seem like an odd thing to steal — bulky, heavy, hardly easy to carry away quietly. But LPG cylinders hold real value, especially in areas where they are a daily household necessity. Theft of this nature doesn’t just inconvenience families; it leaves them without means to cook, sometimes for days, while bureaucratic processes to replace or refill them grind on slowly.
SP Nega used the occasion to send a pointed message to residents. Habitual offenders, he warned, specifically target locked and unattended properties. He appealed to people to stay vigilant and keep a watchful eye on their surroundings and neighbourhoods. It’s the kind of advice that sounds routine until you realise you’re the one coming home to an empty veranda.
Naharlagun, as the twin town of Itanagar, sees its share of petty crime, but theft of essential commodities like cooking gas tends to hit harder psychologically. It’s not just a financial loss — it’s a violation of the quiet trust that holds a community together.
The swift resolution of this case sends a clear message: even crimes that might seem minor on paper will be taken seriously. Police tracked the thefts, studied the pattern, found the man, and brought back every single cylinder. In a place where residents rely on community trust as much as on law enforcement, that kind of follow-through counts for a great deal.
For Arjun Juga, the cooking gas ran out — and so did his luck.
