Breaking The Law
By Roshni Sengupta
08 December, 2005
Countercurrents.org
Two years after the gruesome murder of IIT engineer Satyendra Dubey, a similar incident grabbed headlines recently – the killing of IOC Sales Officer and IIM –Lucknow graduate S Manjunath. What emerges from both these stories of courage and outrage is that the writ of the land and oil mafia runs large in UP and Bihar. By allowing seven petrol pumps to begin operations in the Lakhimpur-Kheri region, Manjunath was not only playing by the rules but was also making an attempt to loosen the hold of the powerful cartels that control the supply of transport fuel in the area. Accelerating diesel sales figures was another of Manjunath’s visions when he assumed independent charge of the region originally under the additional charge of the sales officer of Shahjahanpur.
By organizing local youth as informants, Manjunath had turned a new leaf in fuel policing in the region, ostensibly reviled by the petrol mafia. The honest officer had sealed another petrol pump close on the heels of the Mittal pump, which led to his murder. The fact that cartels control
everything from land deals to railway contracts in the badlands of UP and Bihar has been emphasized enough. From local politicians to cops and developers, the mafia involves all. Policing the underground is not only difficult; it is dangerous beyond all imagination.
Barely three months before Manjunath joined IOC, then chairman M S Ramachandran, testified to a Parliamentary committee, saying his ‘poor sales officers’ were helpless in checking diversion of kerosene for adulteration in diesel. As a result very few officers tread the path of blowing the whistle on offending petrol pumps. The influence that the adulteration mafia wields over the sale, purchase and supply of petrol and diesel keeps officers from doing duty.
A Tata Economic Consultancy Services study in 1994 said that around 30% of PDS kerosene is diverted for black marketing and adulteration. In September 2005, an NCAER study concluded that 38.6% of PDS kerosene was being diverted. Solvents such as pentene, benzene, toluene and heptane are mixed with petrol and sold. Just why such offence is left unreported and criminals are not brought to book is anybody’s guess. Perhaps Manjunath’s murder could alter the equation between the offending retailer, the adulteration mafia and the law enforcement agencies, though the chances seem quite remote. Like all the previous cases, this too would become a dusty file in the police archives.
Would the Indian public sector loose out on bright young officers after the Manjunath incident? Very likely. Jairam Ramesh, in an NDTV sound byte related the whole issue to the subsidies provided on diesel prices and how this results in adulteration and the growth of a cartel. That however is not the only matter of concern. Effective law enforcement and policing is rare in the interiors of states like UP and it shows in the rising crime graph.
The long hand of crime extends to mining and quarrying as well with the mining mafia calling the shots in UP. Mirzapur, for instance – the hub of the mining cartel in the state – is a case in point. The powerful nexus between politicians, mine owners and contractors ensures that labour laws and safety regulations are regularly flouted to earn the mining mafia maximum profits. Women and children work for as little as 2 rupees and 2 kilograms of wheat a day. Many households have lost their earning members either to mine-related diseases such as tuberculosis or mining disasters and as a result lend themselves to exploitation.
The effective enforcement of law and order in the northern states is thus preordained by threats to life and livelihoods. Tiger poaching and skin trafficking, drug and gun running and liquor trade are some of the other sectors, which have been taken over by criminal outfits owing allegiance to political parties. Till such time these crimes go unpunished and no punitive action is taken against the offenders, many more Manjunath’s will face the bullet while on duty.
(Roshni Sengupta is a research scholar with Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.Email: [email protected])
