Man runs cylinder godown at his residential backyard, arrested

The chief minister’s flying squad arrested a 34-year-old man, who operated a godown for storing commercial gas cylinders in the backyard of his residence at Wazirabad in Sector-52, and seized 425 cylinders from the godown, said police on Friday

The chief minister’s flying squad arrested a 34-year-old man, who operated a godown for storing commercial gas cylinders in the backyard of his residence at Wazirabad in Sector-52, and seized 425 cylinders from the godown, said police on Friday.

Man runs cylinder godown at his residential backyard, arrested

Police said the godown posed a major safety hazard as it is in a residential area and the suspect, identified as Pawan Yadav, allegedly carried out refilling activities on a large scale. Three pickup trucks, refilling nozzles and plastic covers used for sealing cylinder caps were also seized from the spot, said police.

“The flying squad received information that Yadav was running a godown at his residence. We contacted him posing as a decoy customer and said that we wanted to purchase a commercial cylinder in black, following which a raid was conducted,” said Prem Puran Singh, Gurugram food and supply inspector.

According to police, the CM’s flying squad and the police conducted a raid at his residence around 7pm on Thursday, which continued for two-and-a-half hours

Police said the commercial cylinders were allegedly being supplied to hotels, restaurants, and other commercial places in Gurugram at high rates.

Officials said they are investigating if Yadav was using domestic LPG cylinders to refill the commercial cylinders inside the godown. Police seized cylinders of 19kg, 35kg and 47.5kg belonging to different public sector oil companies. Police said 198 of the 425 cylinders were completely filled.

Officials said Yadav had an agreement with a government oil company to supply cylinders to customers.

“However, it doesn’t allow him to run a gowdown in such a manner. The agreement only enables him to procure cylinders from refilling plants and supply them to customers at government rates. Instead, he was procuring cylinders from agencies and selling them at high rates,” said a senior police officer.

Singh, who was also part of the raiding team, said Yadav was operating the godown at his residence for almost three years. “We did not find any domestic cooking cylinder at his godown. However, we suspect Yadav was using them to refill commercial cylinders as nozzles and plastic covers for sealing were seized from the spot,” said Singh.

“Yadav did not have any no-objection certificate from the fire department or any other relevant document to prove that he had the permit to run the godown at his residence,” said Singh.

Based on Singh’s complaint, an FIR was registered against Yadav under relevant sections of The Essential Commodities Act, sections 285 (negligible conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter) and 336 (acting rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or personal safety of others) of the IPC at Sector-53 police station.

Jang Bahadur, station house officer of Sector-53 police station, said Yadav is being interrogated and investigation is underway

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