The police have arrested five persons in this connection and seized three diesel tankers, including barrels of kerosene meant for PDS distribution.
City DCP Sanjib Arora said the modus operandi of the racket was to allure the diesel tanker drivers to drive their filled tankers to a nearby jungle near Choudwar, on the outskirts of the city, where a substantial amount of diesel would be emptied and the tanker would be filled with equal volume of kerosene.
The house of one Banamali Sahu in Mahanadi Vihar was looted on the night of November 18 last year, when Sahu and his family members had gone to a famous fair in the city. The other looting had taken place in the house of one Uday Kumar Singh of OMP Square on the night of March 14 this year.