Vadodara: The CID (crime) sleuths on Wednesday arrested two men for dumping chemical water into the Vishwamitri River that flows through the city.
The duo was nabbed from the river bank in Itola village, about 15 km south of the city. In a complaint filed by the CID, a total of 11 persons have been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and for poisoning water.
“The raid was conducted between 1am to 6 am on the basis of a tip-off that the CID had received,” a source in the CID (crime) said. A
According to the complaint filed by CID constable Mayursinh Arjunsinh, some four men fled from the spot in a car after seeing the cops. They were chased but the suspects got the better of the cops.
The CID men then searched the spot and caught hold of two men identified as Ashraf Shah and Dharmendra Yadav both residents of Uttar Pradesh. The investigators also spotted two tankers full of chemicals parked at the spot. Both tankers had pipes connected in the rear and the other end directed towards the river. The chemical was being dumped in the river that is home to hundreds of crocodiles.
The complaint says that the cops found two bills from both the tankers and they had 24,000 kg of hydrochloric acid written on each of them. The bills seem to be fake, said police.
When questioned, the accused duo said that they had filled the chemical water from a company located about 10 km from Ankleshwar in Bharuch.
The investigators have collected samples of the chemicals and sent it for FSL tests. They added that the chemical that was being released in the open would affect the locals and cause them serious disease. The complaint said that Bhavesh Rabari, a resident of Itola village, used to facilitate the dumping of chemicals in the river and charge commission for it.
The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) had in December last year busted a similar racket of dumping toxic chemicals in Vishwamitri River near Vadsar. The pollution control body had filed FIR against five persons for duping the chemicals in the river.