Crime branch to probe recovery of 524 oxygen concentrators from 3 restaurants

Police officers said that teams have been making efforts to track Navneet Kalra, whose cellphone’s last location was in Uttarakhand before it was switched off.

The Delhi Police on Saturday said that the case pertaining to the recovery of 524 oxygen concentrators from three restaurants and a private firm’s godown has been transferred to the crime branch, even as Navneet Kalra, the owner of the restaurants who was allegedly involved in the purported hoarding and black marketing of concentrators, is still on the run.

On Saturday, all the files and documents related to the case were handed over to the crime branch team that will further investigate the case. (Getty Images )

Police officers, who asked not to be named, said that teams have been making efforts to track Kalra, whose cellphone’s last location, they said, was in Uttarakhand before it was switched off. The cellphones of people who are close to Kalra have been put on electronic surveillance and a close vigil is being kept on their movements as well, the officers said.

HT tried to contact Kalra on Saturday through calls and text messages but he could not be reached for comment.

After recovering oxygen concentrators from the firm’s godown, police also arrested Gourav Khanna, the 47-year-old chief executive officer (CEO) of Matrix Cellular company from Gurugram on Friday in connection with the alleged cheating, criminal conspiracy, hoarding and black marketing case that was registered by the south district’s Lodhi Colony police station. Khanna is the fifth person to have been arrested in the case.

The other four include the company’s business head, manager and a sales executive, and the manager of Nege & Ju restaurant, from where the first batch of 32 oxygen concentrators, a carton of thermal imagers and a carton of N95 masks were recovered.

“Khanna was overseeing the import of oxygen concentrators and their sale at high prices. The private firm (Matrix Cellular) was being used to import oxygen concentrators and they were being sold through ’Xpect Everything’, an online portal,” deputy commissioner of police (south) Atul Kumar Thakur said after Khanna’s arrest on Friday.

On Saturday, all the files and documents related to the case were handed over to the crime branch team that will further investigate the case to establish the entire nexus behind the alleged hoarding and black marketing of oxygen concentrators. According to police, the accused were selling oxygen concentrators, costing around ₹20,000, for around ₹70,000 using fake price tags. Police said that the 524 seized concentrators were among 650 such machines that were imported from China and Hong Kong earlier this month.

“Apart from tracing the remaining 126 concentrators that were already sold, the investigating team will also look into rumours that the illegal trade started in October-November and many such devices were sold in the past five-six months. Khanna’s questioning may help the investigators piece together the missing links in the case and also identify other players who were involved ,” said an officer, requesting not to be named.

According to the police, of the 524 seized oxygen concentrators, 96 were recovered from Khan Chacha restaurant and nine from Town Hall restaurant, both in Khan Market, following raids on Friday. The remaining 419 were recovered from Nege & Ju restaurant-cum bar in Lodhi Colony and the Matrix Cellular company’s godown in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur two days before.

“All oxygen concentrators have been imported and acquired by paying applicable import duties, GST / IGST and all sales are done through on their mobile app, and payments are received through online banking channels,” said Samudra Sarangi, lead counsel for Matrix.

“The charges of black marketing and hoarding are not only baseless in law, but also irresponsible in such times when Matrix should be focused on fixing the demand-supply gap for oxygen concentrators. Unfortunately, Matrix is victim of police excess and will follow the due legal process to defend itself and its employees to the fullest extent. Matrix has complete faith in our justice system and trusts that the Courts will protect the unjustly victimised,” he added.