BY TC News Desk
Agartala, 9th November 2023 : The Dharmanagar police station staff arrested two men and seized a truck and an auto-rickshaw involved in a gas cylinder theft racket on Thursday morning.
The racket had been operating for a long time in Dhupirband, Ramnagar, and Uttakhali areas, where they would replace filled gas cylinders with empty ones and supply them to different parts of the state.
The incident came to light when the police received a tip-off about the cylinder theft in Dhupirband area. They reached the spot and found an Indian Well six-wheeler truck with 340 filled cylinders bearing vehicle number TR 05f 1783 and an empty cylinder filled auto-rickshaw with number TR 05D 1753.
The driver of the auto-rickshaw managed to flee, but the police arrested the truck driver Nasir and co-driver Ashok Das. The police also recovered another number plate of AS 25C 9207 from the truck.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer Debashish Saha said that the police are conducting a search operation and interrogating the arrested men. He said that the truck and the auto-rickshaw will be handed over to the food and civil services department. He said that the police will take legal action against the culprits after completing the investigation.
The racket had been cheating the owners of different gas agencies by swapping the filled cylinders with empty ones. Several complaints had been lodged by the gas agencies to the department, but the administration was unable to trace the racket.
The police said that the racket had the help of some local people, who would facilitate the exchange of cylinders. The administration hopes that the arrest of the two men will help them to uncover the whole network of the racket.
