Tamil Nadu: Two held with five tonnes of ration rice in Coimbatore

The Civil Supplies CID police on Saturday arrested two men, one of them a guest worker, and foiled their bid to smuggle five tonnes of rice meant to be distributed under the Public Distribution System into Kerala.

A police officer identified the arrested duo as M Gnanasekaran, 45, of Edayarpalayam, and his employee S Mukesh Kumar, 33, a native of Bihar. “Gnanasekaran runs a mixture shop at Edayarpalayam and Mukesh is employed at the shop. The duo collected ration ice from nearby villages and stored the same in three goods autos. They were planning to smuggle the rice to Kerala and sell it at a higher price.”

The officer said the duo were nabbed based on a specific tip that they were in possession of illegally collected ration rice for smuggling. “We were also told that the rice was stored in three goods autos. Civil Supplies CID inspector Somasundaram and team searched the goods autos that were parked at the Anna Nagar housing unit near Kavundampalayam. The team found that the vehicles were loaded with five tonnes of ration rice.”

Police seized the ration rice and arrested the two men, who were later produced before the judicial magistrate IV and lodged in prison under judicial custody.

This article has been republished from The Times of India.