Police have arrested three persons who allegedly used to paint fire extinguishers as oxygen cylinders and sell them to needy, officials said on Wednesday.
The accused have been identified as Ravi Sharma (40), Mohammad Abdul (38), and Shambhu Shah (30), all residents of Alipur, they said.
A complaint from one Mukesh Khanna was received at Farsh Bazar police station on Tuesday where he stated that he runs an NGO Radha Vallabh Sewa Sangh serving free oxygen cylinders to COVID-19 patients, police said.
Mr. Khanna alleged that one oxygen cylinder distributor, Varsha Engineering at Apni Colony, Alipur, had sold him oxygen cylinders at ₹5,500 per 4.5 litre. When he contacted the same distributor again and asked for more cylinders, the distributor demanded ₹13,000 per 4.5 cylinder, a senior police office said.
When the complainant asked for the reason of demanding exorbitant price, the distributor told him that he is paying tax to government, police said.
Based on the complaint, a raiding team reached the location at Alipur where three people were found engaged in painting some gas cylinders in black colour, the officer said.
“During enquiry, it was found that distributor Ravi Sharma was removing the red paint of fire cylinders which were used for filling of CO2 and was converting them into oxygen cylinders by painting them black with the help of Abdul and Shah,” DCP (Shahdara) R. Sathiyasundaram said. Sharma and his associates have cheated the complainant by selling fire extinguishers as oxygen cylinders at an exorbitant rate. All three accused persons were arrested, the DCP said.
Police seized 532 fire extinguisher iron gas cylinders of different sizes, 26 oxygen gas cylinder nozzles, two electric grinders used to remove the red paint of the cylinders, three silver colour spray-paint cans, one black paint box, one paint-brush, one pipe-wrench and ₹49,500 cash were recovered from their possession, police said.
