GS Chawla’s family members outside the Panchkula Civil Hospital’s mortuary on Thursday. Express photo by Jaipal Singh.

The suicide of a prominent businessman of Tricity, 75-year-old GS Chawla, late Wednesday has brought to the fore the functioning of an alleged oil mafia nexus that operates across the Tricity.

The suicide note by Chawla, carried in the FIR accessed by the Indian Express, has named several senior officials of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and has alleged that they worked in cahoots with the Punjab Police and the Chandigarh administration to force him to “sell one of his petrol pumps situated near Daun village”.

The note read, “I have committed suicide due to harrasment by HPCL officials… By way of cheating and conspiracy they snatched my property, which was in the name of my wife Jagjeet Kaur Chawla at Daun on Chandigarh-Kharar road, with the help of Punjab Police … I had gone bankrupt due to the lowering of VAT rates for petrol and dieseloil mafiamaf at Chandigarh by the UT administration on the behest of IOC dealers… I could handle this situation (referring to a CBI case).. money and corruption has killed many, I have been a simple businessman who could not fight corrupt HPCL officials and the Chandigarh Administration officials…”

The suicide note ends saying, “I applied to lodge an FIR against the culprits.”

It is pertinent to mention that the suicide note has pointed out a 2015 CBI case, which GS Chawla had registered against several affluent persons and officials of the Chandigarh police. Chawla has also named them in his suicide note, accusing them of forcing him to take the extreme step.

The CBI case

In 2015, a case of forgery and cheating had been registered against GS Chawla his wife, son, his son’s father-in-law and the father-in-law’s friend by the UT police at Sector 17 Police Station, on the complaint of Deepa Duggal. The complainant had stated that the five had allegedly forged documents to get loans to buy a property at Chandigarh’s Sector 9, that was being sold by Deepa.

Chawla had then registered a case against Deepa at Sector 3 Police Station, alleging that she had concealed facts about the Sector 9 property. Both the matters were being investigated by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Chandigarh police.

Later, Guneet Kaur, daughter of GS Chawla, had submitted a complaint to the CBI that the EOW officials were demanding Rs 40 lakh for settling the case and for not arresting her father.

The CBI had then laid a trap and arrested former DSP EOW (Economic Offences Wing) RC Meena, along with Sub-Inspector Surinder Kumar Bhardwaj from the EOW office at Sector 17 in August 2015.

The CBI had also arrested two businessmen, Aman Grover, owner of KLG Hotel and Sanjay Dahuja, owner of Berkeley Automobiles, for allegedly accepting the bribe on behalf of DSP Meena and late SI Surinder Kumar Bhardwaj.

The suicide

It was around 9.30 pm on Wednesday that the Sector 5 Police Station received a call from the Panchkula police control room about a suicide. Chawla, who had checked into Panchkula’s Red Bishop Hotel only two hours back was found hanging in his room.

“After we reached, we sent him to a hospital where he was declared brought dead,” said Inspector Lalit Kumar, SHO of Sector 5 PS.

“It looks he had come here only to end his life, as per preliminary investigation,” said a police official, not wanting to be named. This has raised several pertinent questions whose answers are yet to be ascertained.

One of the oldest businessman of the region, Chawla owned at least three petrol pumps in and around Mohali area, while also growing as a restaurateur.

His suicide has sent shock waves throughout the business community of Tricity. Several close to him have alleged continuous harassment by an organised oil mafia that runs and operates especially close to Chandigarh borders.

An FIR too has been filed in the matter under the Section 306 (Abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code, which as per sources, states that Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has been named as the main accused.

“The FIR has been filed on the basis of the suicide note recovered,” said a source in the police department.

The post-mortem of the deceased’s body was conducted on Thursday, after which it was handed over to his family. The 75-year-old’s last rites were performed on Thursday itself.

Close aides of GS Chawla have leveled serious allegations against a nexus of several oil firms that reportedly operates across the Tricity.

“It had been approximately six months since he was being harassed and threatened by HPCL and others. The nexus was forcing my father to sell his petrol pumps at throwaway rates. He had written to senior authorities of the HPCL as well as the vigilance department and state officials, but to no avail,” a person close to Chawla told The Indian Express.

Mohali Petroleum Dealers Association also issued a press statement, which said, “He has sacrificed his life for the cause of petroleum dealers of Punjab and border areas in particular. He has led from the front and has been fighting a battle for VAT Equalization in Petroleum products at par with neighbouring states for the past 15 years with successive governments. The border area dealers of Mohali, Fathehgarh Sahib and Ropar are the worst hit and are on verge of extinction as they have lost up to 80 per cent of their sales to Chandigarh, Himachal and Haryana.”

The president of the association, Ashwinder Singh Mongia pointed out issues of corruption and the presence of the oil mafia.

“Oil mafia has gained footing in the Tricity in the past few years. Before 2017, Chawla’s petrol pump used to be the highest selling and he would sell almost 17 lakh litre of petrol each month which dropped to 2 lakh litre in 2018. This is how mafia works, first they target you and decrease your sales, thereby decreasing the value of your pump and then forcing you to sell it,” Mongia said.

Who is GS Chawla?

Chawla’s daughter Guneet defines him as “an ambitious, hardworking and a self-made man.” He had graduated from BITS Pilani and had worked at HPCL after which he moved to Mohali and opened his first gas station in 1969.

At present, he owned three gas stations including one at Phase 7 of Mohali, another near Daun village near Kharar and a third one which he had developed in a 10-acre area on Rajpura Ludhiana NH1 highway, which also housed several restaurants.

In September 2019, Chawla wrote a letter to the Punjab and UT Administrator, asking for ‘permission to commit suicide’ after his efforts to get fuel rate parity between the UT, Mohali and Panchkula failed “due to the adamant attitude of the Chandigarh Administration”.

Chawla alleged that the lack of upwards revision of VAT by the Chandigarh Administration, which was to be done in the last 22 months, had resulted in the loss of 80 per cent of his business, as his pumps were situated at zero distance from Chandigarh, which he again mentioned in his suicide note.

He had also sent a complaint against the Chandigarh Administration to the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister, Chief Justice of India, Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, CM of Punjab, FM of Punjab, FM of Haryana and a host of other important central and states government functionaries.

He had also held a press conference and alleged that there was a collusion between the Chandigarh Administration and Chandigarh’s petrol pump owners to make petrol cheaper by Rs 5 and diesel cheaper by Rs 3 per litre in the UT.

To highlight the plight of the border area dealers, Chawla led a hunger strike at his petrol pump in 2016 which was withdrawn due to the intervention of Maharani Parneet Kaur and several senior Congress leaders, who had assured that if they were voted to power, they would bring the petrol and diesel prices in Punjab at par with the neighbouring states.