Rajkot Petrol Diesel Dealers Association president Gopal Chudasama on Monday gave a statement to the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajkot City Police which is investigating the FIR filed against him on charge spreading rumours of fuel shortage in the state amid the war in West Asia.
Speaking to The Indian Express on Monday, PSI V V Dhrangu, the Investigation Officer of the case, said, “We have not yet found any evidence of Chudasama making a comment or giving a media byte regarding fuel shortage. We have issued him a notice and he gave a statement on Monday.”
The police are now investigating whether Chudasama had given any media byte regarding “fuel shortage”. The major cities in Gujarat witnessed panic buying of fuel – that began in Rajkot and spread across the state – on March 23 and 24, leading to long queues outside fuel stations across the state.
In Ahmedabad, these queues outside major outlets continued even late in the night even as Deputy Chief Harsh Sanghavi, senior bureaucrats like Additional Chief Secretary Mona Kandhar and collectors, as well as Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary (Marketing and Oil Refinery) in the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in Delhi, tried to assuage people’s fears stating that there is no shortage of fuel in the country.
The investigation against Chudasama, who is also the Vice President of the Federation of Gujarat Petroleum Dealers Associations (FGPDA), began after an FIR was filed against him at Pradyumannagar police station in Rajkot on March 24 on the basis of a complaint by Amit Shivprasad Jaiswal, the Divisional Retail Sales Head of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), based in Rajkot. The case was transferred to the SOG for investigation.
Though The Indian Express reached out to Chudasama, he declined to comment on the matter.
The IOCL had, earlier on March 24, declined to comment on the matter. The FIR stated that on March 23 “Gopal Chudasama had visited my (Jaiswal) office at IOCL Bhavan on Race Course road, along with other dealers and mediapersons without a prior appointment and asked me about our stocks of petrol and diesel…. I replied that IOCL had enough fuel stock. Chudasama then gave a written application on a letter pad.”
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The FIR stated that Jaiswal had told Chudasama to stay away from rumours. The FIR further stated, “Gopal Chudasama then left my office and gave false statements that petrol pumps had run out of petrol and diesel. It was later seen on social media and news channels that there is fuel shortage in the state. …believing these rumours, people lined up outside petrol pumps…”
Later , Chudasama was booked under BNS section 353(1)(b) (spreading rumors that cause public fear or alarm and Sections 3, 7 and 9(2) of the Essential Commodities Act.
The FGPDA had told The Indian Express on March 23 that some petrol pumps had been closed and others had faced a problem of procurement due to the recent change in payment system by oil marketing companies from a credit system to an advance payment policy, triggering cash crunch issues for dealers, and “not due to unavailability or shortage of fuel”.
Brendan Dabhi works with The Indian Express, focusing his comprehensive reporting primarily on Gujarat. He covers the region's most critical social, legal, and administrative sectors, notably specializing at the intersection of health, social justice, and disasters.
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