NEW DELHI, March 25 -- The Delhi Police's Crime Branch has busted two illegal LPG hoarding and black-marketing rackets in separate operations in South Delhi and Dwarka districts, seizing more than 240 gas cylinders and booking five accused persons.
According to police, in the first operation, the Crime Branch's Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) conducted coordinated raids at multiple rented godowns in the Sangam Vihar area and recovered 183 Indane LPG cylinders, including 154 filled and 29 empty ones.
Police also seized equipment used for illegal refilling, including iron pipes, iron pokers and electronic weighing machines.
Four delivery agents associated with an authorised LPG distributorship were found involved in the illegal operation and were bound down in the case.
They were identified as Sher Singh (35), Suraj Parihar (36), Raghu Raj Singh (53) and Jitender Sharma (39), all residents of Sangam Vihar.
The operation followed specific intelligence inputs suggesting that LPG cylinders meant for household distribution were being hoarded and illegally refilled at rented premises in the area.
Acting on the information, a dedicated Crime Branch team conducted raids at three locations in L-Block of Sangam Vihar, where the accused were found actively engaged in the illegal activity.
During interrogation, investigators learnt that the accused, registered LPG delivery personnel of an authorised Indane gas agency with its main storage facility in Sheikh Sarai, would deliberately withhold cylinders from their daily delivery quotas.
These cylinders were secretly stored at rented godowns, where the accused illegally transferred LPG from filled cylinders into empty ones using iron pipes.
Police said the accused typically extracted around one to two kilograms of gas from each cylinder and refilled empty cylinders up to permissible levels.
The refilled cylinders were then sold in the open market at prices higher than the prescribed rates, allowing the accused to make illegal profits while exploiting public concerns over a potential LPG shortage.
In a separate crackdown on illegal LPG trade, a joint team of the Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS) of Dwarka district and the staff of Chhawla Police Station raided a residential premises in Kashmiri Colony on Paprawat Road in Chhawla.
Police seized 65 LPG cylinders, arrested Ashok Kumar; cases filed under law, probe ongoing, strict action assured.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.