One in net for stealing fuel from IOC pipeline

With the arrest of one person, the Delhi Police claimed to have busted a gang expert in drilling and siphoning off oil from underground pipelines. The 'high-tech' gang allegedly operated on the stretch between Panipat and Bhatinda, police said on Friday.

The 250-km-long stretch has an oil pipeline beneath, popularly known as PB pipeline that supplies fuel to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). A case of theft, allegedly committed by the gang in March 2015 rang alarm bells at the IOC control room.

Engineers at IOC soon tracked a theft of 12,000 litres of fuel from their underground pipeline in Balianwali village of Punjab's Bhatinda district, following which a police case was registered police said.

“The Delhi Police received a tip-off about the gang’s presence in West Delhi’s Chander Vihar area. A team was formed to trace the gang members. An alleged member of the gang, identified as Avtar Singh, alias Bittu (42), was arrested on Thursday,” said Pushpendra Kumar, DCP (West).

Singh told the police about the organised gang. He  confessed that he, along with his , along with his accomplices – Rinku, Iqbal, Swaran Singh, Kala, Raju and Shamsher – were involved in the 12,000-litre oil theft at Balianwali on the intervening night of March 26-27, said a police official.

He added that the theft was a planned one. When they reached Balianwali, they parked the SUV near an eatery and blocked a road near the spot, where they had pulled over the tanker and dug up a pit. They connected an iron pipe with the main oil pipeline and attached a rubber pipe to transfer the oil to the tanker.

“The quantity of stolen fuel was so high that the pressure in the main pipeline got lowered, which made the alarm bells ringing and suggested a potential fire hazard in the IOC control room,” said Pushpendra Kumar. “We are now hunting for other gang members involved in the case,” he added.