NEW DELHI: In view of the ongoing LPG cylinder issue, Delhi Police has busted illegal LPG rackets and recovered 248 cylinders in separate operations. In the first incident, police bound down four persons and seized 183 cylinders, officials said.
DCP (Crime) Rahool Alwal said all four accused are registered delivery personnel associated with an authorised gas agency and were responsible for LPG distribution in Sangam Vihar. The agency’s authorised storage godown is located in Sheikh Sarai.
During interrogation, it emerged that the accused were illegally storing LPG cylinders at rented premises instead of delivering their daily quotas after procuring them from the agency.
They maintained unauthorised stock and were illegally refilling gas from filled cylinders into empty ones using unauthorised equipment, selling them in the open market to make undue profits, the DCP said.
The equipment used included iron pokers, iron pipes and weighing scales. The accused allegedly carried out the refilling process cautiously by first removing the sealed caps using iron tools.
Empty cylinders were then placed over filled ones and connected through pipes to transfer gas. Around one to two kg of LPG was extracted from each filled cylinder and transferred into empty cylinders, which were then sold at higher-than-prescribed rates.
In another incident, police arrested a man for illegal hoarding and black marketing of LPG cylinders in southwest Delhi’s Chhawla area, recovering 65 cylinders.
A raid was conducted at a premises in Kashmiri Colony, Prem Nagar, where a residential house was being used for illegal storage and distribution.