Express News Service
 
Ahmedabad, November 28: Three months after it busted the multi-crore subsidised diesel for fisherman racket in the port town of Mundra in Kutch, police have filed a chargesheet against alleged mastermind Salim Ahmed Jat and five others.

The chargesheet, filed before Mundra Judicial Magistrate First Class U M Bhatt, alleges that Jat and his accomplices had in the last two years sold off subsidised diesel worth more than Rs 10.77 crore in the open market.

Express Newsline had first reported this when Kutch police LCB had on August 27 busted the racket and arrested Jat and two others after six tankers containing 96,000 litres of diesel were seized from Jat’s farmhouse near Mundra.

All three accused were then booked under provisions of Prevention of Black Marketing Act and subsequent investigations revealed that the racket was being operated since last more than two years.

The more than 200-page chargesheet filed by police inspector Dilip Agrawat of Kutch police Local Crime Branch alleges that Jat had misused his position as President of Jarpara Matsya Udyog Sahakari Seva Mandli and Administrator of Mundra Juth Matsya Udyog Sahakari Seva Mandli and duped 486 member fishermen of these co-operatives by procuring diesel on their accounts, selling it in the open market and then claiming subsidy on their accounts on the basis of forged power of attorneys.

The chargesheet alleges that Jat and the other accused had been operating the racket since the new diesel subsidy scheme for small fisherman was launched by the state government on April 1, 2003.

Since then — from April 1, 2003 to August 27 this year — the accused had cheated the state exchequer of more than Rs 1.93 crore, alleges the chargesheet. Apart from Jat (46), the other accused named in the chargesheet are Chirag Jagdish Agrawal (32), Balwantsinh Mamubha Parmar (38), Chandresh Kantilal Acharya (33), Mehboob Gulamali Khoka alias Jakhubhai (33) and Munaf Hussain Patni (28).

According to the chargesheet, while Agrawal, Parmar, Khoja and Acharya used to buy the subsidised diesel from Jat and sell in the open market, it was in the name of Patni that the forged power of attorneys of the member fishermen were made and the amount of subsidy claimed on their behalf. This subsidy money of more than Rs 1.93 crore was then siphoned off by Jat.