Heritage condemns pipeline sabotage after Barrackpore leak

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed is re­spond­ing to what it be­lieves is an act of sab­o­tage fol­low­ing a hy­dro­car­bon leak dis­cov­ered along GT Road, Bar­rack­pore to­day. The com­pa­ny said pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ments in­di­cate a sec­tion of pipeline ap­prox­i­mate­ly six feet in length had been de­tached trig­ger­ing spill re­sponse mea­sures af­ter ac­ti­vat­ing its In­ci­dent Com­mand Sys­tem.

Emer­gency teams de­ployed vac­u­um trucks and heavy ma­chin­ery to re­cov­er spilled prod­uct while con­tain­ment booms were placed in a near­by wa­ter­course. The com­pa­ny has en­gaged res­i­dents and stake­hold­ers to pro­vide up­dates and sup­port while con­duct­ing air qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing as a pre­cau­tion. Her­itage strong­ly con­demned sab­o­tage acts warn­ing they threat­en pub­lic safe­ty the en­vi­ron­ment and na­tion­al en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture. The com­pa­ny said it has in­creased se­cu­ri­ty and mon­i­tor­ing of its as­sets fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

The mat­ter has been re­ferred to law en­force­ment and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing. Reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies in­clud­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty have been no­ti­fied. Her­itage reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to full re­me­di­a­tion and con­tin­ued up­dates as the re­sponse pro­gress­es.

The com­pa­ny not­ed that its In­ci­dent Com­mand Sys­tem re­mains ful­ly ac­ti­vat­ed to en­sure co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse ef­forts across tech­ni­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal and safe­ty teams. Of­fi­cials said con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing will re­main in place un­til the af­fect­ed area is ful­ly sta­bi­lized and en­vi­ron­men­tal risks are re­duced. Her­itage al­so said it is work­ing close­ly with na­tion­al agen­cies to strength­en safe­guards and pre­vent sim­i­lar in­ci­dents in the fu­ture.

Res­i­dents in near­by com­mu­ni­ties have been ad­vised to re­main alert and fol­low of­fi­cial guid­ance as as­sess­ments con­tin­ue. Her­itage said trans­paren­cy re­mains a pri­or­i­ty and up­dates will be shared with stake­hold­ers as ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able. The com­pa­ny re­it­er­at­ed its con­dem­na­tion of sab­o­tage and em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing crit­i­cal na­tion­al en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions by law en­force­ment agen­cies con­tin­ue as of­fi­cials seek to de­ter­mine those re­spon­si­ble for the in­ci­dent. Her­itage added that it re­mains com­mit­ted to en­vi­ron­men­tal restora­tion com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and safe op­er­a­tions across all its as­sets while con­tin­u­ing to sup­port na­tion­al ef­forts to se­cure the en­er­gy sec­tor against fur­ther threats. The com­pa­ny said it will con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing and re­port­ing de­vel­op­ments close­ly go­ing for­ward to stake­hold­ers dai­ly.