Srinagar, Apr 30: Barely two months after police busted kerosene oil scam in the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution department with the arrest of nine employees, the department is under scanner again and this time for alleged misappropriation of huge consignment of rice and flour.
Sources told Greater Kashmir that police have zeroed in on six employees who were believed to be the key figures in the scam and are likely to face action in few days.
“They have tampered with the official documents and requisitions to conceal black marketing and misappropriation of heavy consignment of rice and flour. Some top officials of the department are involved,” sources said.
Sources said police got a lead into the scam after it had seized a truck No JKO9/0399 carrying 170 bags of rice and 253 bags of flour which were being ‘misdirected to Tengpora Batamaloo for black marketing at a private store’.
The co-owner of the store and the truck driver were arrested.
“On investigation we found that there was a nexus between the CAPD officials, black marketers and transporters. They had illegally sold the subsidized rice meant for the poor people,” they said.
Sources giving details of the scam said the consignment was lifted from a local CAPD store and was to be transported to a store in Hawal. Instead it was taken to a private store in Tengpora bye-pass leading to arrest of the co-owner of the store and the driver.
However, sources said, during investigation it was found that the six officials had managed the fraudulent documents and requisitions to conceal the fraud.
“They had falsely shown that an additional truck of substandard rice had dropped at Zahidbagh store but our investigations proved that no such truck had been received at the store.  Further, the 92.7 quintals of rice of the monthly quota for Zahidbagh CAPD store were found missing and the officials had tried to conceal it,” they said. 
Pertinently, in a similar case of misappropriation, Police had unearthed a ‘deep-rooted black-marketing mafia’ in the department.
Nine persons were taken into custody in the case while police was still investigating the case.
Police investigations had revealed that an organized racket of black marketers in league with the some officials within the CAPD was resorting to black-marketing of ration and other essentials including kerosene oil resulting in shortage of commodities in the government run depots.
Sources said the accused have been booked under section 407, 409, 420, 120-B RPC 3/7 of Essential Commodities Act.
They said police have also recovered the documents tampered by CAPD officials to mislead it.
Station House officer Batmaloo, Zahoor Ahmad, said the investigations were on and refused to divulge information.
Director CAPD Me’raj-ud-Din Kenu said police was handling the case and the department was waiting for the final investigation report from it.
“We had also an internal investigation into the matter after the truck was seized but now police is looking into it. Let them come with the final report,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 2 May 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 2 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 3 May 2010 00:00:00 IST