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Petrol pump dealer protest rise in crime

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

Vehicle-owners in Patna queued up outside the 65 petrol pumps in the city on Tuesday to tank up after the Patna Petroleum Dealers' Association announced all petrol pumps would remain closed on Wednesday and Thursday.

The PPDA was protesting against the rise in crimes committed against them, the latest being the abduction of Sanjay Kumar, a dealer in Barh sub-division of Patna, and the robbing of other petrol pumps elsewhere.

To press for the early recovery of Sanjay, all 1,200 dealers in the state will again shut shop on November 16. If the police still don't find him, they intend to go on indefinite strike from November 23.

The petrol pump strike on the eve of Bihar's most popular festival, Chhath, on November 13 and 14, is likely to hit traffic badly. Not only the vehicles, even the motor boats used by the devotees to cross river Ganga on Chhath day to offer puja may be affected. However, this year the district administration has banned the ferrying of boat on the occasion of Chhath. The association was under pressure to postpone their stir till Chhath but it went ahead with it nevertheless.

Sanjay was abducted on November 2, and two major petroleum dealers were robbed in Patna recently. Concerned, the association leaders held an emergency meeting on November 8 night where they called for the two-day strike.

Incidentally, most crimes against petroleum dealers have occurred on the 100-km Patna-Mokamah section of the National Highway 30. Seven truck drivers and cleaners were also killed there on November 3.

Sanjay's outlet in Barh also falls on the same stretch. Petrol dealers have been on warpath for the last five days in Barh and adjoining area of Patna district but the administration is yet to react though many petrol pump dealers around Patna are well-connected people.

For example, former Union minister Dasai Chaudhary owns a petrol pump less than 10 km from Patna. The BJP MLA of Danapur segment of Patna, Vijay Kumar Yadsav, owns a petrol station on the Patna Bypass, while a close acquaintance of Surface Transport Minister Nitish Kumar owns one near Bakhtiarpur, 30 km from Patna.

But the dacoits, impartial in crime, looted even this petrol pump a few years ago. As they did the petrol pumps owned by the brother of a senior IAS officer.

Bihar Petroleum Dealers' Association general secretary Amit Mukherjee, said petrol pumps are easy prey because "we dealers can't keep our doors closed. Besides, there is hardly any security arrangement in the far-flung areas."

PPDA secretary Vijendra Kumar Sinha regretted that the district administration had done nothing to trace the abducted dealer.

"We submitted a petition in the DM's [district magistrate's] office on November 3, a day after the incident occurred, yet, till November 8 evening, when we met him, district magistrate Gautum Goswamy, was not aware of the abduction. The district administration has not yet even formed a task force to recover him," Sinha said.

In the last six months, at least four dealers have been shot dead -- two in their home and the two other while they were going to deposit the money in the bank. About a dozen petrol pump employees have been killed in the last few years while resisting highway robbers.

Attacks on petrol pumps are common in north and central Bihar. One petrol pump owner said the Patna-Mokama road has been known for highway robbery since British times. Since the low-lying area south of the Ganga remains water-logged during the monsoons, the idle youth of the area turn to crime. Once the water recedes they return peaceably to farming, he said.

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