Interstate gang involved in oil theft from IOC pipeline busted

PRAYAGRAJ, March 25 (HS): An inter-state gang involved in large scale oil theft from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) pipeline from Kanpur to Barauni was on Wednesday busted and its kingpin was arrested from Jalalpur Boria village under Kokhraj police station of Kaushambi district, police said. A total of seven persons were arrested. Inputs given by the arrested accused helped police in recovering oil tankers, cars and equipment used to extract oil. All the accused have been sent to jail. The kingpin of the gang has been identified as Anil Yadav, resident of Kanpur rural.

The staff of IOC was puzzled. The pressure inside the underground supply pipeline of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in Kanpur had been steadily decreasing. Then they found that a gang of thieves had dug a tunnel to access the supply line and drilled a hole in the main pipeline under Kokhraj police station of Kaushambi, from which they were stealing thousands of litres of oil. Officials of IOC have also lodged an FIR in this regard at Kokhraj police station.

The gang has approximately sold 92 (1 tanker has 20,000-25,000 ltrs) tankers of crude oil valued at Rs 7 crore in the market, in the last three years. Detailing on the gang’s modus operandi, IG Prayagraj range KP Singh said, “The gang had systematically punctured the pipeline at seven points. They are expert in puncturing high pressure oil pipelines by fitting clamps, nozzles, safety valves and transferring the oil to tankers.”

The arrested accused have been identified as Awadhesh Kumar Dubey and Bhagwadin Rajput alias Bhakti of Auraiya, Anil Yadav of Kanpur Dehat, Bhopal Singh Bora alias Gopal of Uttarakhand, Devendra Singh alias Rinku, Anirudh Singh alias Sanju and Brijmohan alias Bittu Yadav of Kaushambi. They were nabbed with the help of surveillance team. They were also involved in stealing oil in other states like West Bengal, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Haryana.  “Raids are being conducted to nab other accused,” said superintendent of police, Kaushambi, Abhinandan Singh.