SAD leader’s petrol pump sealed for illegal fuel supply

FIR REGISTERED AGAINST PETROL PUMP, TRANSPORT FIRM AND TANKER DRIVER

BATHINDA/MUKTSAR : Police on Thursday booked the owners of a private transport firm, New Deep Bus Service, and a fuel station besides a tanker driver for illegally transporting diesel from Muktsar’s Gidderbaha to Bathinda to refuel buses.

The officials sealed the fuel station and impounded the tanker.

Interestingly, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Hardeep Singh ‘Dimpy Dhillon’ is a partner in the New Deep Transport Co while his family owns the fuel station, Satpal Traders, in Gidderbaha. Dhillon unsuccessfully contested the 2017 assembly polls as an Akali candidate from Gidderbaha.

The first information report (FIR), however, does not mention the accused by name except tanker driver Sardari Lal.

A joint team of the food supplies and weights and measurement departments raided a parking shed of the transport firm on the Bathinda-mansa road and the fuel station.

An official spokesperson said the raid was carried out following a complaint to food and supplies minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu who ordered a crackdown on the nexus wherein fuel was being supplied clandestinely to the pump.

Buses of the firm have been refuelled at the Bathinda interstate bus terminus (ISBT) and even in the middle of their routes through small tankers for some years but no action was taken even as it was highlighted.

The case was registered under the Essential Commodities Act, Section 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 285 (negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Another case was registered against the fuel station owner at the Gidderbaha police station.

“The team found that two tankers were filled at the fuel station in the morning. While one tanker was used for refuelling buses the other left for Balluana,” assistant director (food supplies) Rakesh Singla said.

Dhillon termed the action politically motivateda. “The Congress government couldn’t find anything against me so it resorted to this,” he said.

AMARINDER HAS REITERATED HIS GOVT’S COMMITMENT TO THE WELFARE OF FORMER SPORTSPERSONS