Beltangady : Police Arrest Two in Diesel Pilferage Scam
Daijiworld Media Network—Beltangady (RD/CN)
Beltangady, Apr 27: The town police unearthed a racket involving pilfering of diesel from long distance pipelines of oil major Petronet for the third successive time near Madantyar, on the night of Monday April 26.
The raid by policemen on Monday night resulted in seizure of a tanker, a Chevrolet car, equipment used in drilling a hole in the pipeline, and the arrest of two persons.
The arrested are Cyril D’Mello, resident of Moodushedde in Mangalore, and Rajesh Sequeira, tanker driver and a resident of Hosanagar. Three others—Srikanth Poojary, Suresh Shetty, and Harish—managed to escape.
The culprits had drilled a hole into the petroleum pipeline passing beside the Uppinangady–Madantyar Road to pilfer a large quantity of diesel.
The pipeline is located on the estate owned by Dr Subramanya Ballal. The diesel was pilfered after fixing a gate valve to a drilled spot on the pipeline and it was the same method used in earlier cases elsewhere in the past.
Dr Ballal, who returned to his estate from Udupi on Monday night, found an empty can and diesel stains all over the road.
The local women earlier told him that the stench of diesel is coming from the surrounding area. He then called the MRPL landline to apprise them of this situation, but his call was not attended to.
Then, Dr Ballal reported the matter to the fire brigade who in turn asked him to convey the message to the local police.
When Dr Ballal informed the local police, sub-inspector Subba Puramat and police personnel laid a trap to nab the pilferers.
Some people arrived at the spot in a Maruti Zen on Monday night, but did not drive through the estate. Meanwhile, a Chevrolet car and a tanker drove through the gate and the team led by the sub-inspector managed to nab the tanker driver and cleaner, while those who arrived in the Maruti Zen escaped from the spot.
Deputy superintendent of police C K Shashidar arrived at the spot on Tuesday morning and the investigations are underway.
It is being conducted by head constable Gopal Naika, Bhaskar, policemen Sundar Shetty, Shashidar, Venkatesh, Vrashabha, Uday Rai, and driver Kanakaraj, to identify the other accused.