Two held for manufacturing, transporting illegal firecrackers in Delhi

A 58-year-old factory owner and a tempo driver were arrested for allegedly manufacturing and transporting illegal firecrackers in Outer North Delhi's Narela, police said on Tuesday.

The accused were identified as Rajkumar, a resident of East Punjabi Bagh and Deepak (30), a resident of Narela, they said.

During patrolling on Monday, Deepak, who was driving the tempo, was arrested. He was transporting firecrackers in his tempo from a factory at E Block DSIIDC Narela to a godown of F-Block, Bhorgarh, a senior police officer said.

On checking, the vehicle was found containing firecrackers in 45 sealed boxes concealed in plastic bags, they said.

Later, police reached the factory and searched the three-storey building from where, they seized around 125 cartons of firecrackers, 10 machines for manufacturing them, around 400 bags of raw material and an acidic liquid, they said.

Thereafter, the Bhorgarh godown was also raided and around 500 sealed boxes of the firecrackers were recovered, the officer said.

A case under relevant sections was registered and the accused were arrested, police said.

Factory owner Rajkumar disclosed that he was discretely manufacturing firecrackers ahead of Diwali to make huge gains so that he could sell the banned item at higher prices, they added.