Coop office bearers among 5 held for urea black marketing

SURAT: Crime branch sleuths arrested five persons on Tuesday for selling subsidized urea meant for agriculture purposes to industrial units in the city. The accused include a transporter and office bearers of a cooperative society based in Bareja near Ahmedabad.
The accused were identified as Himanshu Bhagatwala, Umesh Anajwala, Sandip Desai, Vikran Rana and Yaubshah Diwan. The accused were arrested under the Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act.
Of the five accused, Bhagatwala is the owner of an industrial unit in Sachin where the urea was found during a raid by police on March 26. Police had then recovered 39 bags of urea worth Rs 11,544 from the industrial unit besides 541 empty urea bags. The urea was supplied by Anajwala, who is into transportation business.
During investigation, it was revealed that Anajwala was supposed to transport the urea to Bareja Seva Sahkari Mandali in Ahmedabad district. As planned, Anajwala delivered the urea to Bhagatwala in Sachin while the Mandali employees showed in their books that the urea consignment was delivered. Besides Bhagatwala and Anajwala, the other three accused are employees of the cooperative society. Desai is the secretary, Rana works as a clerk and Diwan is the storekeeper of Bareja Seva Sahkari Mandali.