Before Sonawane,there was Manjunath

Death of one oil mafia victim brings back bitter memories to the family of another.

Far away from Malegaon,Maharashtra,in the little town of Kolar,Karnataka,the January 25 murder of Malegaon additional district collector Yashwant Sonawane by the oil mafia brought back memories to a family that five years ago lost a son fighting the same illegal trade,which still thrives across the country.

S Manjunath,an Indian Oil Corporation official,had been killed by the oil adulteration mafia in Lakhimpur Kheri,Uttar Pradesh. On the night of November 19,2005,Manjunath,an IIM-Lucknow alumni and then 27,was shot dead by the owner of a fuel station he was investigating for a second fuel adulteration offence within a span of two months.

This is a situation similar to what happened with my brother8230; the local oil mafia is doing what it pleases,no one is controlling it for long durations,and when someone honest starts probing it he gets brutally killed, says S Raghavendran,younger brother of S Manjunath.

Like in the case of my brother,the official in Maharashtra has been killed for doing his job, says Raghavendra who declined an IOC job offered to him after Manjunaths death.

Manjunaths retired father M Shanmugam is aware of what has happened in Malegaon but he does not want to talk about it for fear that it would send him into depression again.

The process of law is long in our country and allows such things to happen. The loss of my eldest son five years ago was a heavy one to bear. My life came to a standstill for almost five years. I dont want to waste my life away by thinking of these things now, Shanmugam,62,said from Kolar.

According to Raghavendran,the killing of Sonawane shows that few correctional steps are taken at any level to check the oil adulteration mafia though a lot of things had been said by a lot of people when Manjunath was killed.

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Manjunaths killers were identified through the chance discovery of his body by an alert police team and after a swift investigation carried out by the police in Uttar Pradesh.

The owner of a petrol station,Monu Mittal,who was behind the killing of the IOC official,is sentenced to a life term with six of his associates after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on December 11,2009,upheld their conviction. The convicted killers have approached the Supreme Court.

Manjunaths family has been consistently helped in its quest for justice by the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust set up by friends and alumni from IIML. Everything has been handled by the trust. We are advised from time to time on what is happening, Raghavendran said.

Manjunaths brother and sister have settled down to steady jobs with MNCs in Bangalore. Manjunaths father has retired from Bharath Earth Movers Limited and,with his wife,moves constantly between their homes in Kolar and Bangalore.