Five oil thieves held red-handed by APMC cops

Five persons, who were allegedly stealing oil from a tanker parked in the APMC market area of Vashi, were caught red-handed by the police on Tuesday.

According to the police, Ram Yadav, 47, resident of Nerul, Vijay Jha, 28, resident of Vashi, Imam Chowdhary, 42, resident of Kurla, Tahir Shaikh, 35, resident of Kurla and Aurangzeb Shah, 28, resident of Gowandi, were stealing base oil from the tanker that was parked near the commodity center around 8.45 pm. All of them were nabbed by the police before they could flee the spot.

"One of our beat marshal teams spotted the suspects filling base oil in large containers. Our officials surrounded them and inquired about their business. When they were unbale to given coherent replies, our team took them to the police station and later arrested them. The suspects were reportedly planning to sell the oil somewhere in Mumbai," said a police officer from APMC police station. The police later seized the tanker and the oil worth Rs 43, 50,000.

The suspects were booked under sections 379 and 34 of Indian Penal Code. They were produced before the judicial court on Thursday.

"We suspect that the culprits were involved in other similar crimes that took place in our area in the past. However, we have not found any criminal record of them so far. Our investigations are still on," informed another police officer.