Singrauli (Madhya Pradesh): A recent incident in which sand mafia crushed a tribal youth Indrapal Agria under the wheels of a tractor-trolley seems to have woken up the administration which has decided to come down heavily on the illegal sand miners who are ruling the roost in the district.
The incident occurred in Ganni village on Sunday night. Agria died in the small hours of Monday. On the heels of the incident, commissioner of Rewa division BS Jamod and inspector general of police Rewa zone Mahendra Singh Sikarwar visited the district headquarters on Wednesday.
The commissioner directed the officials to deal a severe blow to the illegal miners. They held a meeting with the officials of the district administration at the collectorate auditorium to review the law and order situation and to stop illegal mining, on Thursday.
Mining has been banned till October 1, and the officials of the police, mining and revenue departments should jointly work to stop illegal mining, they said.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Praveen Singh Chouhan alleged that the contractors, in collusion with the officials of the district administration, were doing illegal mining.
In a release, Chouhan said that if a proper inquiry was conducted a major scam would be exposed. The Congress leader further said that the National Green Tribunal has imposed a ban on mining Thathra mine.
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Nevertheless, the district administration issued an order permitting a contractor to do mining in the Chhulhawa area under Thathra Panchayat. To avoid NGT ban, the order of the district administration did not mention the name of Thathra.
According to Chouhan, the sand contractors, in collusion with the officials, are illegally mining sand in Piparjhar and Devra. A huge quantity of sand is being stored in an area where alligators are kept.
