When granite businessman Mohammed Mujahid (32) stopped at a Shell fuel station recently to fill up diesel, little did he expect that his car would stop on the highway a few hundred metres away.
After service technicians failed to reach the spot due to the pouring rain, he returned to the fuel station to see if he could get some help, only to find another four to five people there with the same problem. Within an hour, the number of irate customers swelled to close to 20. “We began to suspect that the diesel was mixed with water and that was the reason for the cars stopping on the highway,” Mr. Mujahid said.
This was confirmed to The Hindu by the franchisee owner of the fuel station, Srinivas Reddy. “Due to the heavy rain, rainwater got mixed in one of the tanks. The station was working fine since morning,” Mr. Reddy said. The police arrived around 12.30 a.m. “Eight constables went to the petrol bunk to prevent any untoward incident,” said Ramappa, Inspector, Talghattapura police station.
“There was leakage in the underground petrol tank and the diesel in one tank got mixed with rainwater,” he said. When Mr. Reddy told the customers he would get the tanks emptied and refilled, they refused as the contaminated diesel would have already entered the engine. Finally, he agreed to pay for servicing the vehicles.
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