Fuel mafia attacks police team in Nagpur

Barely a week after the additional collector of Nashik district was burnt alive by the oil mafia, a team of 10 policemen was today attacked by a group of people allegedly linked to adulterators at Umred in rural Nagpur today.

Police sources said the policemen were conducting raids at a kerosene adulteration joint when a group of people attacked them with axes and pelted stones at them. The injured police personnel have been admitted to the Umred municipal hospital.

The raids were part of a crackdown by the state government against the adulterators of oil, milk and also against those engaged in the illegal sand excavation.

The crackdown was launched after Additional Collector Yashwant Sonawane was set on fire by the oil mafia in Manmad in Maharashtra's Nasik district when he tried to take photographs of kerosene being stolen from an oil tanker. Eleven people were arrested in connection with Sonawane’s murder.

The police have seized 40,000 litres of diesel from Mulund, the eastern suburb of Mumbai, during the ongoing crackdown against the mafia. Fake oil barrels were seized in Latur city in the Marathwada region.

The police and officials of the supplies department have seized more than 7,000 litres of kerosene from Ahmadnagar in western Maharashtra.