Fake petrol making unit busted in Meerut, 10 held

MEERUT:With the arrest of 10 people, police claimed to have busted two fake petrol manufacturing units in the city and seized over 2 lakh litres of chemical used in making the spurious fuel.

The raids were carried out at Vedvyaspuri and Devpuram in Partapur area on Tuesday night.

“Complaints regarding bad quality of petrol that was damaging the vehicles were registered in a large number. Therefore, a number of teams were formed to look into the matter,” said Avinash Pandey, SP Rural.

Pandey said the crime branch led by IG Alok Singh raided the two chemical factories-- Paras Chemical and Ganpati Petro Chem-- in Partapur area. Chemical and fake petrol was recovered from these factories in a large amount. Apart from that, ten people involved in the illegal business were arrested during the raid.

During interrogation, the accused told cops that they used to purchase the chemical for ₹30-38 per litre and added food colour to make it look like petrol.

Pandey said the spurious petrol was supplied to various petrol pumps in the city as well as in states like Punjab and Haryana and at the market price.

They used to store the chemical and fake petrol in underground tankers in the factories, the SP (rural) said.

Those arrested were Rajeev Jain, Shwet, Umesh, Tafshiram, Pradeep Gupta, Aakash Garg, Ravindra Kushwaha and Rajveer of Meerut and Anand Prakash and Rajkumar of Ghaziabad.

He said the cops were also probing the role of other people involved in the illegal business and the mediators.