Bhubaneswar, May 31: An oil tanker driver and his helper have been detained by the city police for allegedly stealing 205 litres of petrol worth around Rs 14,000. The fuel was stolen while being transported to a filling station at Balipatna from the Indian Oil depot at Jatani last night.

The petrol pump owner, Aditya Narayan Mahasupakar, said Ranjan Barik, the supervisor of his Balipatna petrol filling station, had accompanied the oil tanker. “Tanker driver Rabindra Swain, helper Ashok Mallick and four others took the tanker to a deserted place near Khurda and stole the petrol,” said Mahasupakar. When the supervisor objected, they offered him money to keep quiet.

and threatened him.

The supervisor lodged a complaint with Jatani police in the evening. Supakar, a resident of Sisupalgada in the city, said that his men caught the tanker driver who hailed from Sikharpur area in Cuttack. “We informed the oil depot manager who checked the tanker and found 205 litres of petrol missing from it. The tanker was carrying 8000 litres of diesel and 4000 litres of petrol. Then we handed the driver and helper to Lngaraj police,” he said.

The Lingaraj police officials said that they would hand the miscreants

to their Jatani counterpart as the case was lodged there. Meanwhile

the Jatani police have seized the tanker.