The Khojbal well incident has shown that a group of people exists which is adept at opening up wells and drawing either barrels or even tankers of crude oil with the entire machinery of the ONGC and the Bharuch police unable to prevent it.

``I feel the villagers are only the conduits; there might be bigger fish involved in the oil thefts,'' said Col. K B Vora, ONGC's Group General Manager (Projects), Ankleshwar Project. A senior police official, not willing to be named, also did not rule out this possibility.

Surprisingly, not many here bat an eyelid at the fact that otherwise illiterate villagers know how to tap an oil well and siphon off the liquid. And they know it well, if the 20 cases of oil thefts reported in the region every year is anything to go by.

Asked how they could open wells, Vora said, ``We have a large number of contractual workers drawn from nearby villages who pick up these things on the job, and could then train others.'' In the Khojbal case, though none of the victims was in ONGC's employment, one of them -- Dawood Umarji Ishe Patel -- had a record of oil thefts. The village sarpanch, Hassan Shah Mehboob Shah Diwan, and Babubhai Vasava from the same village have been arrested, while two others -- Akbar Shah Mehboob Shah Diwan, the sarpanch's brother, and Lalu Rajmaster -- are absconding.

ONGC officials and police say since the miscreants were trying to draw condensate from the well, it must be with the intention of either selling it to petrol pumps, where it's mixed with petrol and diesel, or to use in their own two-wheelers. In this case, however, they probably planned to sell it, because they had filled up five barrels containing about a thousand litres.

Asked if he didn't find the situation alarming given the fact that both the ONGC and police have expressed their limitations in controlling it, Vora agrees, ``It is alarming and we have brought this to the notice of the Director-General of Police during our meeting.''

The issue became a matter of concern at the quarterly meeting of the On-Shore Security Coordination Committee, chaired by DGP C P Singh, in Ahmedabad on January 28 attended by senior ONGC and police officials. After detailed discussions the meeting concluded that provisions of the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act should be used more often against those found to be regularly involved in oil thefts.

Vora says this would prove a deterrent since PASA detention would be for a six-month spell; they currently receive bail soon after being arrested.