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3 held in rice seizure case

PUDUCHERRY: Personnel from the Food Cell wing of the territorial police on Saturday arrested three persons in connection with the seizure of rice at the railway station.

The arrested were identified as M. Arun David (35) from Muthialpet, Kapil Reddy (28) from Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh and Prasanth (24) from Nagendra block in Bangalore.

They were remanded to judicial custody.

Superintendent of Police (Food Cell) N. Ramachandran told reporters here that all the three were employees of Mumbai-based National Collateral Management Service (NCMS) Limited. Cases have been registered against the NCMS along with PRS Traders, APMC Yard Bangarpet in Karnataka, he said.

The arrested had confessed that the rice was “smuggled from Public Distribution System (PDS) outlets” and was being transported to Bikkavolu station near Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Ramachandran said.

Details about the procurement and nature of rice could be had only after testing the samples, which had been sent to Chennai, he added.

Interrogation of the arrested revealed that two consignments of rice were transported from Puducherry station to Assam and Bangladesh in the last six months, Mr. Ramachandran said.

The consignment, which was detained on October 27, contained around 2,500 tonnes of rice.

The Food Cell sealed two godowns at Thirubuvanai and Mettupalayam and both together had a stock of around 500 tonnes of rice, he said.

Preliminary investigations also revealed that a leading private bank had taken possession of the rice stock after the owner of the warehouse did not repay loan, he said. “The bank, through auction, allotted the sale deed to NCMS to sell the rice. They sold the rice to PRS traders,” he added.

The full details of the “illegal possession” of rice would be available only after the owner of the warehouse, a resident of Chennai, was arrested, he said.

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