The warehouse owner, Sukiman, and his two workers were questioned by the police for being involved in illegal LPG injection business activity, a police spokesman said.
Senior Commissioner Gde Sugianyar said police in the raid caught Sukiman`s workers when they were illegally injecting 12-kilogram canisters.
Thanks to locals` information on Sukiman`s warehouse, the police could reveal the outlawed activity, he said.
The suspects illegally injected LPG from three-kilogram-typed cylinders to those of 12-and-50-kilogram-weighed canisters, he said.
Sukiman paid his two employees named I Made Wiska and I Gusti Ngurah Komang Edy Adnyana for Rp1,000 for every canister that they illegally injected while the profit that he gained from these illegal business activities was about Rp10,000 per injected canister, he said.
Due to the danger of these illegal LPG injection activities to the doers and other people, the national police threaten the operators with severe punishment.
Chief of the National Police`s Detective and Anti-Crime Division Commissioner General Ito Sumardi has said those involved in illegal LPG injections would be indicted on multiple charges.
The multiple charges were meant as a deterrent to the public, he said.
With these multiple charges, the illegal LPG injection cases could be minimized in Indonesia because these crimes had contributed to the gas canister blasts, Ito Sumardi said.
Since the government began implementing its kerosene-to-LPG conversion plan in 2007, at least 45 million packages of gas stoves and three-kilogram gas cylinders have been distributed to the people.
Since then, LPG canister explosions had frequently occurred in various parts of Indonesia. One of the causes was related to gas canister whose volume might have been removed and injected illegally.
In dealing with gas canister blasts, President Yudhoyono had proposed that the LPG aroma be made more smelly to enable gas stove users to detect leaking LPG cylinders.
President Yudhoyono also underlined the importance of public awareness campaigns by issuing "secure gas use" posters. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
