Fuel theft racket busted, five held in Hyderabad

The arrested persons were N Koteshwar Rao, an ex-employee with the Indian Navy and currently a GHMC sub-contractor, B Venu Madhava Rao, A Sudhakar Reddy, Mohd Owais and K Venkataiah.

Hyderabad: The Rachakonda Police Special Operations Team, along with the Abdullapurmet police, busted a fuel theft racket and arrested five persons here on Wednesday. They also seized a diesel tanker loaded with 15,000 litres.

The arrested persons were N Koteshwar Rao, an ex-employee with the Indian Navy and currently a GHMC sub-contractor, B Venu Madhava Rao, A Sudhakar Reddy, Mohd Owais and K Venkataiah. Three suspects, Shakeel, Ashok Reddy and Ayub Ali Baig, were absconding.

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According to the police, Koteshwar Rao, who voluntarily retired from service in 2009 did various businesses for eight years before taking up a contract to provide diesel to GHMC vehicles. As per the contract, he has to provide diesel by collecting coupons issued by the authorities concerned. Rao collected fuel from the IOCL, Cherlapally, provided the required fuel to GHMC vehicles and then claimed the amount from GHMC by submitting the bills.

Officials said since the last six months, the automation system was not working at the fuel station located at the Khairathabad GHMC vehicle dumping yard. “In absence of proper surveillance in respect of the filling of fuel in the GHMC vehicles, the suspects stole fuel and sold it at cheaper rates,” police said, adding that following a tipoff, the SOT caught the suspects while stealing fuel from a tanker at Abdullapurmet.