New Delhi: As Delhi is suffering from a water crisis, AAP leader and Delhi  Minister Atishi Marlena wrote a letter to the Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora and urged him to deploy the police personnel across the major pipelines of the national capital to protect it from miscreants.

In the letter to the commissioner, She requested police personnel to patrol and protect major pipelines for the next 15 days.

“To stop miscreants or people with ulterior motives from tampering with water pipelines which have now become Delhi’s lifelines. At this juncture, any foul play and sabotage will worsen the already difficult water shortage being faced by the people of Delhi,” said in the letter, ANI reported.

She said that the Delhi Jal Board has patrolling teams for the main water distribution network which carries raw water to the Water Treatment Plants (WTPs).

Atishi added that the ground patrolling team found damaged water supply pipelines in places like South Delhi Rising Mains which carries water from Sonia Vihar WTP to South Delhi. 

“This was near the DTL substation in Garhi Medhu. Our patrolling team found that several large 375 mm bolts and one 12-inch bolt had been cut from the pipeline, causing the leakage- The fact that several large bolts had been cut seems to indicate foul play and sabotage,” she said in a letter.

Atishi further mentioned that the maintenance team worked for six hours to fix the leakage issue, worsening the water shortage in South Delhi.

“Our maintenance team worked for six hours continuously and repaired the leakage, but this meant that we had to stop pumping water for 6 hours and 20 MGD of water was not pumped during this time. As a consequence, a further 25 per cent of water shortage will be experienced in South Delhi,” the letter read.