Port Blair, July 25: Eight persons have been arrested by Police on Wednesday (24/07/13) for stocking and selling counterfeit automobile spare parts. Huge quantities of counterfeit spare parts of a reputed company have been seized from their shops.

On information that sale of counterfeit auto spare parts are becoming rampant in Port Blair market, causing wrongful loss to customers, government as well as original manufacturers, the CID was keeping surveillance over this illegal business of procurement, stocking and selling of counterfeit items.

A case was registered at PS CCS on 24/07/13 on the complaint of a reputed manufacturer of genuine parts. Several police teams were formed with personnel drawn from PS CCS, CID and South Andaman District Police. In simultaneous raids at various shops in Junglighat and Bathu Basti area, 738 nos. of counterfeit parts like spark plug, filter etc. were seized from eight shops.

The shop owners namely (1) Sushil Kumar (34), S.S. Motors, Junglighat  (2) Shakir Mumtaz (40), Shakir Enterprise, Junglighat (3) Anil Kumar Gopalka (35), Sree Sham Motors/M.G. Trading, Junglighat (4) N. Haneefa (42), Shiva Motors, Junglighat (5) Vikas Agarwal (32), S.K. Automobiles, Calicut (6) Anil Kumar (54), Geetanjali Automobiles, Bathu Basti (7) K. Raman,  Lord Balaji Agencies, Prothrapur Jn, and (8) Raju Muneeshwaran (45), Indian Auto Mobiles Agencies, Prothrapur Jn. were immediately arrested. Investigation has revealed that the retailers used to procure counterfeit products from some suppliers in New Delhi and Chennai.

The raids were conducted by police teams led by Insp. R.K. Sharma, SHO, SI Zainuddin and SI Usman Ali of PS CCS; Insp. D. J. Rao, SHO, SI Vikash Singh and SI Aditya Narayan of PS Aberdeen;  SI P.K. Abdul Arif, SHO and SI Adimoorthy of Pahargaon and SI Girish Kumar of PMF under direct supervision of Shri K.M. Pillai, DySP (CID) and Shri Gurmeet Singh, DySP (SA) and operational planning and overall supervision of SP (South Andaman) & CID, Shri Chinmoy Biswal, IPS.

The arrested persons were produced before the Hon’ble Court from where they have been remanded to judicial custody.