Manjunath had evidence to close pump down, owner’s son called him to his murder

The first one had already attracted a penalty of Rs 75,000 on the dealer and a suspension of all sales and supplies at the outlet for 30 days.

Not just that, Manjunath was, in fact, the first IOC staffer to blow the whistle on this pump owned by Sulakshan K Mittal—whose son Monu is now the prime suspect in the murder—since it was commissioned in 1976.

The papers also reveal that on the night he was killed, Manjunath got a call from Monu Mittal as late as 9.30 pm, when the IOC manager was at another petrol pump, Agarwal Brothers, in nearby Gola.

He was called on “some pretext,” the correspondence says citing police statements—this was the second time that day that Manjunath was visiting the pump—”and was shot dead between 9.30 pm and 10 pm.”

Hours later, the police apprehended two employees of Mittal Automobiles with Manjunath’s bloodstained body in the backseat of the young officer’s Maruti 800. On interrogation, the two confessed that Monu Mittal had killed Manjunath at the outlet.

What “pretext” that was can now be known only through Monu Mittal’s interrogation but on September 13, Manjunath, who was Sales Manager (Retail), had conducted a surprise check of the Mittal pump. His brief: to find if the retail outlet was selling the right quality and quantity. His report showed that it wasn’t.

According to IOC records, the probe showed ‘‘stock variation beyond permissible limits.” Although the fuel sample taken was “meeting specification,” the stock mismatch indicated that the pump had more stocks of petrol and diesel than it should have, considering the volumes it bought from IOC and sold to consumers. This, said a former IOC official, indicated adulteration of kerosene in the outlet’s storage tanks thereby increasing the turnover volumes. The fact that the samples were “clean,” indicated that the adulterated products could have been sold off much before the testing day.

This was not the only irregularity that Manjunath recorded. The dealer, Suulakshan Mittal, had neither kept a sample from the IOC tanker that brought in the product nor maintained stock records at the outlet.

Samples from tankers have to be kept at pumps as a benchmark for matching the density of the products and ensuring that lighter kerosene is not mixed in heavier diesel.

As for logs, the daily stock and sales numbers serve as an indicator for IOC inspectors to check for sudden spikes in volumes, another indicator of adulteration.

The murder at the outlet was corroborated today with the police recovering three bullet shells from one of the diesel tanks at the outlet. It also found sealing pliers and duplicate seals that were used for locking the mouth of the storage tanks buried underground at each outlet.

An IOC official confirmed that an FIR had been lodged against the dealer under the Weights and Measure Act.