Samajwadi Party leader held for stainless steel pipe theft from L&T

Acting on the complaint, the Hazira police arrested Ashok Patni from Ahmedabad and Nurulla Matiulla Khan from on July 27. During interrogation, they revealed that they had taken a godown on rent for 11 months at Bhatpore near Hazira to store the stainless steel pipes, which they had stolen with the help of Sharma.

Following this, Sharma was arrested from Rishikesh and Mohammed Riyaz Khan — former secretary of Samajwadi Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit — from Hardoi on Friday. They were brought to Surat later in the day and produced before a court, which sent them to police custody of four days.

Hazira police Inspector V L Parmar said, “Vivek Sharma stole the pipes from the storeroom with help of a person named Pavan Sharma… Mohammed Riyaz purchased some of these pipes… We are looking for the others involved in the theft.”

He added, “Mohammed Riyaz runs scrap business at Vadodara. Before the last Lok Sabha elections, he was Samajwadi Party’s UP unit secretary. Recently, his name has been nominated for the post of party national secretary.”