The police has arrested four more persons in connection with the series of fires at Deonar dumping ground, taking the total number of arrested accused to 13. All the arrested accused are scrap dealers and the police said that the objective of setting fire to the dump ground was to recover gold particles among the city garbage. Police officials said the racket was going on for a few years, and there is possibility of arrest of some of the city jewellers in the case as well.
The police got a lead on the scam from one of the rag pickers operating at the dump ground. A police officer said that the arrested scrap dealers would hire rag pickers to find fine gold particles from the garbage at the dump ground and they would then sell it to some of the jewellers in Zaveri Bazar.
“The arrested scrap dealers used to bring garbage from Zaveri bazaar and burn it at the Deonar dumping ground. They had hired rag pickers to do the job. After burning the garbage, the ash was returned to certain jewellers for money and those jewellers would retrieve gold from that using chemicals,” the officer said. The officer said the rag pickers were paid Rs 2,000 per day per person just to set the garbage on fire. The police is yet to determine the quantity of gold retrieved from this racket.
The police had arrested nine scrap dealers on Saturday. Seven more persons were detained on Sunday afternoon.
Those arrested on Sunday have been identified as Firoz Rais Khan (33), Kalam Iqbal Sheikh (44), Saida alias Lalu Hafizullah (46) and Vijay Krishna Prasad Gupta (32), the police said.
“Initially, we detained some rag pickers and through them we got links to some big dealers. There is a chain of dealers who have been involved in this crime since long,” the officer said. The accused have been booked under sections 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance) and 437 (mischief with intent to destroy something) of the IPC.
