Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 17: Udhampur police today sealed a mini cement plant at Railway Road, which was engaged in manufacturing duplicate cement of major brands like Ambuja and ACC and arrested seven persons including two owners of the plant and four experts of making cement, all of whom hailed from Bihar.
Police have seized 5300 bags—both filled and empty with brand names of Ambuja and ACC apart from local Trishul cement. The infrastructure used in manufacturing spurious cement has also been seized.
SSP Udhampur Anil Magotra told the Excelsior that Udhampur police station teams conducted raids at mini cement plant on the name and style of Gautam Building Material at Railway Road this afternoon and detected that the factory was engaged in filling local cement in branded bags of Ambuja and ACC.
Mr Magotra said the owners had installed several equipments inside a dark room in the premises of the plant, where they used to mix local cement in the branded bags and sold them in the market.
He said Trishul brand of cement was available in the market at Rs 225 per bag. They filled the same cement in Ambuja and ACC cement bags, which was being sold at a rate of Rs 390 to Rs 400 per bag. This way, the accused had been earning huge profits by cheating the people.
Police recovered 400 filled bags of ACC cement, 200 bags of Ambuja and 700 bags of Trishul cement. Apart from this, police also seized 2500 fresh empty bags of Ambuja and 1500 empty bags of ACC cement.
Mr Magotra said police was trying to ascertain from the accused the source of fresh empty cement bags of Ambuja and ACC in which they had been filling local cement.
The arrested accused have been identified as Arun Gautam and his father Ashok Raj Gautam, both resident of Jakhaini, Gulshan Kumar son of Mohinder Singh, Dharminder Singh son of Ramdev Singh, Kumod Singh son of Rama Kant Singh, all residents of Pipper Panthi, Bhagalpur in Bihar, Harbhajan Kumar son of Maheshwar Singh of village Sehran in Khagaria, Bihar and Vikram Singh son of Kartar Singh of Mand, Udhampur.
All accused have been booked under Sections 3/7 Essential Commodities Act, 420, 484 and 34 RPC at Udhampur police station.
Police said the mini cement plant has been sealed for further investigations in the case.
Udhampur police station team headed by SHO Inspector Deepak Jasrotia made the arrests and seizure under the supervision of DIG Udhampur-Reasi range Gareeb Dass and SSP Udhampur Anil Magotra.
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