Anti-Aids campaign goes to court to get lifeline back

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Icon of anti-Aids campaign goes to court to get lifeline back

Vineet Oberoi, who was infected along with his brother during a

blood transfusion, says he was cheated out of alloted petrol pump .

Ananthakrishnan G.

New Delhi, June 30: In the early '90s, they were the face of India'

s anti-AIDS crusade. The Oberoi brothers EVineet and Rohit Eboth

haemophiliacs, who contracted the virus through a faulty blood

transfusion, had made headlines.

At a time when an HIV-positive person was distant and faceless, they

came out to be photographed and talked about the disease.

Then the virus struck. Rohit died.

And today, Vineet, a full-blown AIDS patient, runs from pillar to

post to regain his lifeline Ea petrol pump he was allotted on

compassionate grounds by the P V Narasimha Rao Government.

Vineet claims an influential petroleum dealer and some government

officials duped him.

But refusing to give up, he has now approached the Delhi High Court

to get back the pump, which had funded his treatment Ecosting about

Rs 50,000 a month Efor so long.

``It was also a source of strength as it helped him forget his

illness,'' says Advocate V K Shali, who is fighting his case.

``Things were running smoothly till Rohit's death in 2001. Then

one day, as Vineet was returning home, someone robbed him of the

collection money of over Rs 4.5 lakh,'' recalls his 73-year-old

father Om Prakash Oberoi, a retired Lok Sabha employee.

He turned to a dealer for monetary help Eand to part with the pump

in the process. Finally, in August 2004, it was taken over by BPCL.

Since then, they have been trying to get it restored, but to no

avail, says the father.

``We have sold off our home to raise money for his treatment. By

the end of next month, we will be moving to a rented

accommodation,'' says Vineet's mother, Mohini, fighting back her

tears.

But even in the middle of the worries, Vineet finds a reason to

smile. His wife, Neeru, non-Hiv person, had decided to marry him

knowing his situation fully well.

``It was an article on Vineet in a 1994 copy of The Indian Express

that evoked my interest. I was then in Kolkata, where I had joined a

Christian mission to pursue my dream of becoming a nun,'' she

recounts.

It was Vineet's courage to take on life and dispel notions about

AIDS that attracted her.

After about three years, she got his phone number from a marriage

bureau for HIV patients. ``We got in touch and tied the knot in

October 1999,'' she smiles.

``When we decided to marry, many people told me that I was

spoiling a girl's life. I told them I had hidden nothing,'' says

Vineet. ``Now I have disproved all of them. After three years of

marriage in 2002, Neeru's medical report was normal though we eat,

drink and sleep together.''

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