NEW DELHI: The Delhi police have arrested six individuals in separate operations and recovered a total of 269 LPG cylinders from them amid cooking gas crunch.
In the first incident, cops raided a location in Rajpur Khurd village on Tuesday, recovering 223 cylinders. This included 16 filled domestic cylinders, 45 empty domestic cylinders, and 162 empty commercial cylinders. Officials also seized an electronic weighing machine and eight safety caps, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Anant Mittal said.
The premises were operating as an illegal storage facility without a valid license, posing a serious threat to public safety in the area.
Two people, Hitesh Rathi (38) and Arvind Kumar (40), were arrested on the spot. Both failed to provide valid licenses or satisfactory explanations for storing the cylinders. Officials from the Food Supply and Consumer Affairs Department and representatives from the gas company verified the recovered cylinders. A case has been registered under sections of the BNS and Essential Commodities Act at Maidan Garhi police station, and a probe is ongoing.
In a second incident in west Delhi’s Khyala, police acted on a tip-off on Wednesday and conducted raids at three locations, recovering 46 LPG cylinders from rented premises and temporary sheds. Four people—Shivmurat Singh (40), Raghuraj (26), Arvind Singh (27), and Ompal (37)—were arrested. Police also seized weighing machines and illegal refilling equipment.
All the accused persons disclosed that part of the LPG cylinders had been procured from a gas agency in Paschim Vihar and Rajouri Garden. The role of these gas agencies and their employees is being examined. Three cases have been registered at Khyala police station.
Interrogation revealed that the accused procured cylinders from gas agencies in Paschim Vihar and Rajouri Garden under false identities. They stored the cylinders in congested areas to avoid detection and illegally transferred gas from filled cylinders into empty ones to create additional cylinders for black-market sale at inflated prices, up to `3,000 per cylinder compared to the normal `900.
Police are investigating the possible involvement of gas agency personnel in facilitating these illegal operations.