Oct. 15: A ration dealer was caught allegedly smuggling rice meant for the poorest of poor to a vegetable seller’s godown in a Nadia village last evening.

Ashit Biswas of Nalupur in Krishnagunj, about 120km from Calcutta, and Lakshman Ghosh, who works in his shop, have been arrested.

Police said they were shifting 350kg of rice to Gopal Ghosh’s house in adjoining Khatura village.

The rice was to be distributed among below-poverty-line families under the Annapurna and Antodyaya schemes.

Gopal, the vegetable seller, is absconding. Police have sealed his godown and seized five jute bags of wheat.

“We detained Ashit and Lakshman yesterday but took them into custody on the charge of pilfering rice meant for public distribution today,” said Santanu Ghosh, the officer in charge of Krishnagunj.

In Balurghat, South Dinajpur, subdivisional food controller Ananda Mishra sealed two ration shops after he found anomalies in stock verification.

The raids followed complaints lodged by customers against shops owned by Bondev Mohanto of Prachya Bharati and Shantirani Das of Sibtoli.

In Malda, residents of Gajole and Harishchandrapur gheraoed the ration dealers in their respective areas demanding fair distribution of foodgrain.

District magistrate Chittaranjan Das claimed that so far the licence of 16 dealers have been cancelled. Five of them have been showcaused.

Das has appealed to the people not to take law into their own hands. He said if they had any complaints against any particular ration dealer, they should get in touch with the district administration.

At Haroa in North 24-Parganas, about 200 people stormed the block development office where a meeting was on with ration dealers and representatives of political parties.

The meeting ended abruptly as the villagers went on the rampage.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has called a meeting on Wednesday to work out steps to control the ration riots and spiralling prices of vegetables.

Finance minister Asim Dasgupta, food minister Paresh Adhikary and panchayat minister Surjya Kanta Mishra will attend the meeting.