The food department claimed to have busted a gang allegedly involved in black-marketing of liquid Petroleum Gas (lPG) on large-scale.
A press release issued by the food controller reads that their officers got major success after they conducted raid at a place called ‘Way-Bridge’ situated in Mandir Hasod under Umariya village in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.Based on information received against the gang in last two weeks of investigation, a team of assistance food officer Sanjay Dubey, RC Gulati and food inspector Anil Joshi conducted raid at the aforesaid place around 12.30 a.m while some miscreants were busy in refilling a lPG tanker from another.
With the help of an electric motor pump placed in a room situated there, the miscreants were emptying the highly inflammable substance from a tanker of Hindustan Petroleum and were filling the same in an another tanker parked there.It was all the way chaos as after noticing the officers approaching them, the miscreants made their bid to flee the scene and even succeeded.Both the tankers’ drivers managed to take away the vehicle from the spot. The driver, whose tanker (GJ06 X8064) was containing about 8 ton lPG and was refilling another tanker, drove the vehicle towards Arang Nagar Panchayat.
The food department’s officers however gave a high-speed chase to him. The driver later abandoned the tanker near a petrol pump before fleeing the scene.The officers found a purse from the spot, which had a driving license and voter-id card of the suspect.Based on this, the suspect was identified as lalu Panavar while the vehicle registration card of the tanker carried name of one, Mahesh Panchulal Solanki of Jaishree Nagar, Indore as the owner.
The food officers drove the tanker to Mandirhasod police station and lodged a complaint against the miscreants under liquified Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply & Distribution) Order 2000 and Food and supplies related to the Essential Commodities Act -1955. A three-horse power motor-pump, two pipes, an electronic weighing machine, tools and other materials were also seized from the spot.
Preliminary investigation revealed that lPG tankers, carrying the name of Hindustan Petroleum Company were seen parked near Way-Bridge in last two weeks.Following this, the officers reached at the company’s depot situated in Mandirhasod and handed over a letter to the additional collector Sanjay Agrawal, urging him to provide details of those tankers, which either delivered or loaded from the depot during last two weeks.
The officers were also investing the roll of Way-Bridge’s owner, a transporter and a man identified as Shiva in the matter.