Inter-state oil pilferage gang busted in Odisha, 12 arrested

Angul: Odisha Police today busted an inter-state gang engaged in pilferage of diesel from from Indian Oil Corporation Limited’s (IOCL) Jharsuguda-Paradip Pipeline here on February 13.

A special team of police arrested as many as 12 persons in this connection inlcuing the mastermind, Vineet Gupta of Mathura, a mechanical enginnering graduate, after conduting raids at various places including Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Jajpur.

Gupta, who is the son of an IOCL employee, had brought two groups (Papu and RK Sharma) and chalked out the strategy to steal oil from IOCL pipeline, police informed.

Addressing a press conference here, Angul SP Brijesh Kumar Rai said: “Raj Kumar Verma of Awasthi, Ranjan Singh of Angul, Subrat Das, Kmaskhya Prasad, Prafulla Pradhan (All from Angul district), Gouri Shankar Prusti , Madan Mohan swain, Abhimanyu Bhola ( from Cuttack district), Dhananjay Dwidei of Jajpur, Karan Sharma of Delhi and Basisht Sahu of Tarini Filling station in Angul were arrested by a special police team.”

Speaking about their modus operandi, the top cop said the accused used to steal oil by tapping into the pipeline by drilling holes and using a device to pump out fuel.

He alos said that they have seized 2 tankers, 1 Innova car, 1 Scorpio, 1 Indica car, and 1 i20 car used in the racket as well as Rs 4,56,000 in cash from the possession of the accused.

The SP further revealed that the gang had stolen around 49000 litres from the IOCL pipeline and later sold to Angul based Tarini Petrol pump.

Further investigation into the oil pilferage is still on.

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