The Pune Police have arrested two people and seized a hoarded cache of nearly 18,000 face masks worth more than ₹4 lakh from Somwar Peth. Demand for masks is soaring amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to a senior police official, more than 17,800 masks worth ₹4.3 lakh were seized during a raid conducted by a unit of the Pune Crime Branch at a godown in Narpatgiri chowk on Thursday night.
The accused are Bhupesh Gupta, who ran a small firm, and his office boy Ajay Shukla. The duo had hoarded a variety of masks with ISI marks to black-market them, the police said.
A case under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, was filed against the duo at the Samarth police station by sub-inspector Hanumant Shinde.
The crackdown by the Pune Crime Branch follows a series of similar actions by their Mumbai counterparts earlier this week.
On Monday, Unit IX of the Mumbai Crime Branch had seized more than 25 lakh high quality masks worth ₹15 crore from an air cargo stop outside the Mumbai International Airport and from a godown in Bhiwandi.
