The son of a manufacturer of iron rods (Sariya) allegedly got tonnes of iron rods thrown into ten feet deep water at Gogaon as a vigilance team from the Steel Authority of India ltd (SAIl) arrived in the locality to seize iron rods with fake SAIl stampings on them, sources said.
The raid was conducted by the team at Pankaj Ispat ltd in Gogaon, after knowing about the raid, Pankaj Agarwal, the son of the factory owner of Alankar Allies, lalit Agarwal got the iron rods manufactured at Borjhara road in Guma in their factory premises thrown in the water.
The vigilance team which had been carrying out the searches during the past two days in both the factory premises found during search that company's workers attempted to remove the SAIl stampings from the rods found in the factories. Both the factory owner and son are now absconding.
The raid is being conducted as a joint operation between the SAIl team and the local police in the premises of both Pankaj Ispat ltd and Alankar Allies for the past two days.
On a complaint lodged by SAIl Engineer Narendra Kumar and officer S Ramchandran both from the Mumbai office a case of cheating alongwith other offences was registered against lalit Agarwal and Pankaj Agarwal.
In-charge CSP Urla Mukesh Khare informed that the process of seizure of iron rods is still underway in both the factory premises.
The computers, CPU and documents have been seized from the offices of the factory during the raid. The hard disk of the computer would be able to reveal the time from which the iron rods with the fake SAIl stampings were being sold to the market and where the consignments were sent, police said.
The iron rods which were thrown in water had been recovered by draining out the water using a pump, according to Urla Police Station In-charge Purnima lamba.
The bundling of the iron rods is also being carried out in the factory after identifying which of them had the fake ‘SAIl’ markings. A grinder machine had also been seized from the factory premises.
In another case, a factory was found in the Khamatrai area involved in the illegal manufacturing of gas cylinders.The owner of the factory Mantu Tapadia is absconding.