Jammu, Nov 16 :  Police on Thursday unearthed pilferage of essential commodity and seized two tankers of Indane Gas Agency and gas cylinders by arresting two persons red-handed in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The accused were arrested while extracting gas from tankers using pipes and filling the same in the commercial gas cylinders to be sold at the price lower than market rates.

However, a case under relevant sections was also registered at Police Station Samba through Police Post Supwal and investigation is underway.

The arrested accused have been identified as Ravi Kumar of Motlian Kalan Utterbehni, tehsil Vijaypur, district Samba and Happy Manyal of Diani, tehsil and district Samba.

However, two drivers of the tankers managed to flee from the spot taking advantage of darkness, police added.

Police added that they too have been identified and raids are being conducted to arrest them and some more arrests are likely in this case of criminal conspiracy for pilferage of essential commodity, criminal breach of trust, act of habitual receiving of pilferaged property having knowledge that the same was pilferaged and rash act with combustible matter endangering human lives.

Senior Superintendent of Police Samba, Benam Tosh, said initial investigation revealed that the same pilferage of gas from Indane gas tankers had been committed for the last over four months at the same place during midnight hours.

The Indane gas tankers coming from Punjab side to Indane LPG Bottling Plant Bari Brahmana, Samba used to come to this particular place i.e Chhajwal Barian, Supwal Samba at odd night hours for pilferage purpose.

On the intervening night of November 15 and 16 at around 2 am, alert Police conducted raid at Chhajwal Barian in the jurisdiction of Police Post Supwal and arrested two accused red-handed while extracting gas from big gas tankers and filling it in the big sized commercial gas cylinders.

The nocturnal raid on the specific tip off was conducted by the Police team of PP Supwal headed by Chowki Officer Supwal, Deepika Jalotra and investigation is being conducted by SHO Police Station Samba Inspector Daljit Singh under the supervision of DySP Garu Ram and Additional SP Samba Surinder Choudhary.

The tankers and gas cylinders were seized in the presence of Executive Magistrate First Class and Gazetted Police Officer DySP Garu Ram.

The SSP said night patrols and raids have been intensified by Police in Samba district to curb criminal conspiracies, pilferage, thefts and smuggling during night hours and perpetrators of crime being nabbed one after the other.