Petroleum black marketers held

The police have arrested the proprietor of Trishuli Oil Stores and three other persons on diesel black marketing charges. They have been charge-sheeted under the Black Marketing Act. The gasoline station was caught selling diesel at double the price to Bivab Foods on Tuesday. It had charged Rs160 per litre for the fuel. The tanker driver Krishna Dahal and the petrol pump attendant Jiwan Bhandari have also been arrested. The police swooped on the gas station following repeated complaints by consumers. Officers from the Taruka Police Station also seized 1,000 litres of diesel hidden in a water tank that the gas station had planned to send to Kavre. “Bivab Foods had paid for the diesel through Himalayan Bank,” said DSP Siddhi Bikram Shah. Locals have long been upset by the undesirable activities of the gasoline station. They said that the company had been cheating consumers by sending fuel allocated for local distribution by Nepal Oil Corporation to other districts with high mark-ups. Source: The Kathmandu Post