Diesel loot racket busted; 5 held in Talcher

The Talcher police arrested five miscreants and seized two pistols, two magazines, eight live bullets, three choppers, etc, of a diesel theft racket.

The arrested persons along with others used to loot diesel from big machines of different coal mines with the help of unscrupulous security staff regularly. As several criminal gangs are engaged to loot diesel, there is often ugly competition among them, leading to fights.

The leader of the arrested gang had taken a supari of Rs 5 lakh to kill another gang leader and eliminate his gang from Talcher coalfields area. A gang war was imminent in the area, but timely action of Talcher police averted it.

The arrested were identified as Moti alias Musaraph Khan (29) of Talcher, Jitu alias Rudranarayan Pradhan (27) of Dhenkanal, Muna alias Abdul Wahid (19), Rocky alias Chanu alias Md Inzemam (26) and Tikili alias Md Farukh (19) of Daragha Bazar, Cuttack.

Angul SP Mitrabhanu Mohapatra said several others are also involved in the crime and will be arrested soon.

He told mediapersons that a special squad of police will be deployed at Talcher coal mines area to prevent and detect the criminals with their arms and ammunitions very shortly . As Talcher is a mineral rich and industrial area, anti- socials and criminals have links with gangs in different parts of the State and outside. Among others, SDPO Hemant Kumar Panda, IIC Talcher Police Station Soubhagya Chandra Swain and other staff were present at the Press meet.