Shahid alias Khurana (40), Mursalin (37), Tosif (21), Anwar (22) and Shahnwaz (18) were arrested after an MTNL employee, Briham Pal Singh, reported theft of underground cables belonging to the telecom firm.
A JCB machine, 127-feet-long cable and other equipment were seized from them.
"Shahid worked as a cable jointer in MTNL from 2001 to 2010. He knew how to uproot underground cables," police said in a statement.
Shahid formed a gang and started stealing underground cables of MTNL. Rajesh Kumar, a resident of Bhalswa Dairy Samay Pur, gave him a JCB for committing thefts, it said.
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