RAJKOT: A
major diesel theft racket was busted at the
Deendayal Port (formerly Kandla Port) with the arrest of two tanker drivers on Thursday.
Two tanker drivers were arrested and three officials at Kandala Port Trust (KPT) booked for the theft of 8,000 litre diesel on Tuesday night. The fuel sent by
Indian Oil Corporation (
IOC) was meant to be supplied to the KPT. Sources said that Thursday's arrest and seizure is only the tip of the iceberg as the racket as been flourishing right under the nose of port officials and their connivance for many years now.
According to Kandla Marine police, IOC had sent two tankers each containing 20,000 litre diesel to be supplied as fuel for the two tugboats of the Deendayal Port Trust (DPT). The complaint by DPT supervisor Rameshchandra Chauhan (59) stated that tanker drivers—Rajeshgar Gosai and Iqbal Lakad—offloaded 18,000 litre diesel from one tanker and transferred it to a tugboat and 14,000 litre diesel from another tanker and transferred it to another tugboat with the help of K Bhaskar Rao, the store keeper at the port. The remaining 8,000 litre was siphoned off.
Two assistant engineers at the KPT—Abdul Ahmed and S C Mohanty—allegedly signed the receipts stating that they had received the complete fuel supply.
"The theft was detected when Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at the checkpost of the KPT intercepted the tankers on their return journey. When the CISF officials found 8,000 litre diesel inside the tankers, they questioned the drivers as to why the fuel was left in the tanker when they had gone to offload it. When Gosai and Lakad could not give a satisfactory answer, the CISF personnel called up the Kandla marine police. We interrogated the diver duo and they confessed to the theft and also named the co-accused, the officials at the KPT, in the crime," said police station sub-inspector K F Devmurari.
While Gosai and Lakad were arrested on Tuesday night, the manhunt has been launched for the other accused named in the case.
