Rs 10 lakh worth grains sold off, three booked

Vadodara: Three persons were booked under the Prevention of Black Marketing & Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act and for cheating and forgery as they were found selling government wheat stock in the open market.
The local crime branch (LCB) of Vadodara rural police had seized 1,067 sacks of wheat in July from a flour mill in Waghodiya under the suspicion that the grain stock had belonged to the government and was being sold in the open market illegally. After the seizure, the LCB sleuths informed the civil supplies department of the district administration about it and conducted its own investigation.
During probe it came to light that 1,067 sacks worth Rs 9.8 lakh was part of government stock to the flour mill in Waghodiya. “When we seized the stock, the truck drivers produced bills of different grain trading firms operating in Alirajpur in MP and at Anklav in Anand district. But on checking at the addresses, we found out that no such firms existed and everything was bogus,” said a police official. Based on the report an offence was registered on Wednesday. The trio are — Pradeep alias Pappu Jaiswal from Chhota Udepur, Laxman Solanki, of Anklav, and Sameer Shah, of Khodiyarnagar.