Inspector General of Police (IG) for Civil Supplies CID (CS-CID), Rubesh Kumar Meena, said that in the past five months, 56 people, who were arrested for Public Distribution System (PDS) rice smuggling, were detained under the provisions of the Goondas Act in the State.
The IG inspected the CS-CID office at Keerambur in Namakkal district on Saturday. Later, Mr. Rubesh told reporters that to prevent crimes related to civil supplies, inspections were being carried out in four zones in the State. Already, inspections had been carried out in Tiruchi, Ariyalur, Perambalur, and Karur districts. In the past five months, 878 metric tonnes of PDS rice worth ₹1.06 crore were seized from smugglers.
A total of 5,120 cases were registered and 4,608 people were arrested. From the offenders, 1,099 vehicles, including 434 four-wheelers, were seized. As PDS rice was smuggled across inter-State borders, monitoring increased in the border districts near Kerala and Karnataka. Stern action would be taken if PDS rice was used for feeding chickens in poultry farms, the IG warned.
Published – June 21, 2025 06:05 pm IST
