‘BJP MLA using vehicle of oil scam prime accused’

As this case is related to national interest, police should have exposed all the culprits involved, whether they are from Congress, BJP or any other party. It’s a multicrore scam with its links in many states.

a Congress leader was arrested in the Barmer crude oil theft case, a party MLA alleged on Friday that a BJP legislator was using a vehicle registered in the name of the prime accused.

Kailash Choudhary, BJP legislator from Baitu, is using the sports utility vehicle (SUV), alleged Mevaram Jain, Congress MLA from Barmer.

“BJP leaders are pressuring the police, which is hindering a fair probe,” Jain told reporters. He demanded that the BJP legislator’s use of the SUV be included in the probe.

Police recently unearthed a syndicate that smuggled more than 50 million litre of crude in water tankers from the Cairn India oilfield in Barmer. The theft from India’s largest onshore oilfield went undetected for nearly six years until police arrested 31 people this week.

Barmer police arrested Congress IT cell co-coordinator Manoj Gujar on Tuesday. Gujar is also the executive head of Shree Mohangarh Construction Company, a crude transporter that was blacklisted after police found its involvement in the oil scam. The local court remanded him to a five-day police remand.

Police said Gujar was charging ₹10,000 per tanker from Gautam Singh Rajpurohit, the prime accused in the scam. Based on the statement of the accused, police claimed that 15,000-20,000 litre of crude worth Rs 3 lakh was stolen daily leading to a loss of Rs 11 crore per annum to Cairn India.

“As this case is related to national interest, police should have exposed all the culprits involved, whether they are from Congress, BJP or any other party,” Jain said. “It’s a multicrore scam with its links in many states.”

Such a theft cannot be carried out without connivance of crude transporters and company officials, he alleged. “Due to political pressure, police are avoiding exposing the involvement of company officials and political leaders. A fair probe will reveal big fishes in the case.”

Countering Jain’s allegation, Kailash Choudhary said, “Till date Congress leaders kept mum, but after police established the connection of Congress leaders in oil scam, they are levelling baseless allegations.” Choudhary said he had demanded a CBI probe and written to the Prime Minister and the petroleum minister in this regard.

Jain said he had raised the oil theft in the state assembly in 2105. “I had questioned about the oil theft in the past three years; I was informed that Barmer police had registered four cases in 2014 and 2015 and recovered about 49,000 litre stolen crude,” he said. “If police had taken the case seriously at that time, such a huge revenue loss could have been averted.”