Mining mafia mows down forester in Ramnagar
HALWANI/DEHRADUN: The forest department on Saturday suspended three senior officers, after an operation went horribly wrong during which the mining mafia mowed down a beat watcher near the banks of Kosi in Ramnagar.
In another incident on Friday, the Barhaini range near Kaladhungi saw confrontation between mining mafia and forest officials near Baur river.
A forest team led by Barhaini beat officer Mayank Kumar was fired upon by mining mafia, prompting the team to retaliate. This was the nineteenth instance of attack on forest employees by the quarrying mafia in last six years.
The brazen killing is the first major test for the new Trivendra Singh Rawat-led BJP government. The opposition Congress was quick to latch on the episode, alleging that a BJP minister was hand in glove with the mining mafia in Uttarakhan.
Rawat condemned the incident and directed the police to take the necessary measures in order to bring the mining mafia to justice.
He announced a compensation of ₹1 lakh for the bereaved family.
Pehelwan Singh, 47, from Bannakheda, Bajpur was crushed to death by a tractor trolley on Friday night at Jwala forest range when he along with a team of nearly 24 personnel was chasing the vehicles laden with riverbed material on Friday late evening. The deceased has seven children.
The illegal miners had come prepared as it reportedly held a dozen foresters captive inside the dense forest. But they beat a hasty retreat when they realised a police team was on its way to the spot. The police said that the tractor trolley has been identified and the driver Jaswant was arrested late Saturday evening.
After a directive by the chief minister, forest minister Harak Singh Rawat ordered the removal of divisional forest officer (Terai East) Kahkashan Nasim, sub-divisional officer Balwant Shahi and ranger Shekhar Tiwari.
They in fact had been shifted to other jails. As the agitated inmates set furniture, quilts and other material ablaze, the police kept firing into the air.
Tension escalated when some inmates moved towards the boundary wall on the rear side of the jail and succeeded in breaking a portion of the wall in an attempt to flee. Cops had to resort to heavy tear gas shelling to bring the situation under control. Sources said some prisoners even recorded the violence on mobile phones.
TOP COPS CAMP IN JAIL Security forces had cordoned off the entire area, and cops were deployed outside the boundary wall to scuttle any attempt of jailbreak. Police top brass, including director general of police (DGP, law and order) Hardeep Singh Dillon, additional director general of police (ADGP, jails) Rohit Chaudhary, inspector general, border range, Naunihal Singh and Gurdaspur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Bhupinder Singh camped inside the jail till wee hours of Saturday. Sources said apart from allegations of rude attitude by the jail authorities, the inmates were also frustrated with intensive checking being carried out to curb drug menace and smuggling of other materials, including mobiles, into the jail . The 30 accused inmates have been booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 224 (resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension), 186, 332, 353 (obstructing, assaulting, hurting public servant), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance), 148, 149 and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.