95K masks worth ₹1.36cr seized from SoBo godown, trader arrested

The officers from Mumbai crime branch’s unit 3 raided a godown at Reay Road on Wednesday night and seized 95,000 masks worth ₹1.36 crore and arrested a 36-year-old

The officers from Mumbai crime branch’s unit 3 raided a godown at Reay Road on Wednesday night and seized 95,000 masks worth ₹1.36 crore and arrested a 36-year-old trader under the Essential Commodities (EC) Act on Thursday.

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“The owner of the godown, Abdul Sayyad Aktari Mirtuza, was arrested under the EC Act. Mirtuza, a Byculla resident, told the police that he had bought the masks in bulk and stored them in his godown and wanted to sell them later. He has been supplying face masks to medical stores and others from more than five years without any license. The officers have seized 64,000 N-95 masks worth ₹1.28 crore and 31,000 3-ply masks worth ₹7.75 lakh,” said senior inspector Ashok Khot of unit 3.

After the lockdown was declared on March 23, the crime branch has seized around 32.58 lakh masks worth ₹17.30 crore from different parts of the city. Of these, 10.30 lakh were N-95 masks worth around ₹12.45 crore, while the remaining were 3-ply masks worth ₹4.85 crore, joint commissioner of police Santosh Rastogi of the Mumbai crime branch said.

The government has declared face masks and hand sanitisers as essential commodities upto June 30 to insure that there is no scarcity of these two items and they are priced correctly. Under the EC Act, the government has declared that investigating agencies can carry out operations against those involved in the black marketing of masks and hand sanitisers.

“We started a crackdown against those storing the masks illegally and are selling them at a higher price. We have arrested around 20 people from across the city under the EC Act until now selling these products in black market,” said Rastogi.

“If any person stores masks in a truck or a godown without a valid licence, then the police informs the collector’s office and following the collector’s order, the masks are handed over to government authorities. Until now, we have handed over around 9.20 lakh seized masks to the civic body and Haffkine Institute as per the collector’s orders. The others too will be handed over soon after the orders are received,” a crime branch officer said.