LUCKNOW: In a major breakthrough in the fuel pump scam case, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF), working on the basis of leads, conducted raids at different places in Pune and Thane in Maharashtra late on Sunday night and arrested two persons.
While one person arrested in Thane was involved in the manufacturing of the chip used to steal the fuel by manipulating the fuel dispensing machine and software installed, the other person nabbed in Pune used to assemble and supply remote control gadgets to operate the chip.
Besides, the STF sleuths also recovered finished and semi-finished chips in large numbers apart from electronic parts of petrol pump machinery made with large quantity of remote assembly. Moreover, 24 ready remote control gadgets and 14 display boards were also recovered by the police during the raids.
According to STF SSP Amit Pathak, Vivek Harish Chandra Shetty — arrested on Sunday night — used to live in a Co-operative Housing Society located at Dombivali east of Thane district in Maharashtra. The other person Avinash Manohar Naik resided in Sai Vihar Apartment in Pune.
Both Shetty and Naik had been involved in the illegal racket for quite some time.
The police are trying to trace their links to other big cities across the country.
Earlier in May, in a crack down on petrol pumps across the State, the Uttar Pradesh STF had arrested more than two dozen people and seized a number of petrol pumps which were using an electronic chip, allegedly fetching them profit of lakhs of rupees per month through short measuring.
As part of the racket, a remote control was being used to set the limit of fuel in dispensing machines fitted with the chip. On asking for one litre petrol, a customer would actually receive only 940 ml, saving 60 ml fuel for the pump owner.