The police arrested four persons with fake batteries worth over Rs1.83 crore around 8.30 pm on Saturday. The batteries, believed to be imported from China, were to be delivered to retailers in New Delhi, said an officer of MRA Marg police station.
The arrested four were identified as Maqbool Shaikh, Ravindra Singh, Kamlesh Singh and Satish Singh. Shaikh has a mobile phone accessories shop at Musafirkhana, Crawford Market. The other three are handcart pullers.
Inspector RB Mane got a tip-off on Saturday that a consignment of fake batteries was on its way to Musafirkhana. A team, led by assistant inspector Ravindra Wani and sub-inspector Sawailal Chavan, laid in wait, and arrested Ravindra, Kamlesh and Satish. The three were standing by two handcarts parked near Musafirkhana.
“Inside the handcarts we found 90 cartons of BL5C batteries, two cartons of headphones, and four cartons of mobile phone bodies. Nokia stickers were pasted on the batteries, even though it was evident that they were duplicate. There were 1,000 batteries in each carton,” Wani said.
“Each of the seized batteries would have fetched Rs200. Investigations revealed that the consignment was to be delivered to retailers in New Delhi. Maqbool has no criminal history. The four were released bail on payment of surety. We will be doing our best to
put an end to the sale of fake batteries,” sub-inspector Chavan said.
