Mafia growing aggressive as demand for sand increases
LUCKNOW : Driven by the lure of lucre, the sand mafia is growing fearless as there is spurt in the demand for sand in northern states.
The tough stance taken by the state government has even failed to check their illegal activities, largely in West UP and adjoining states of Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
The police officials admit illegal extraction on the Yamuna and Hindon riverbeds to meet the demand from realtors in Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Agra and Moradabad in the state, and even from key cities in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
Official sources said while a licensed operator, after paying royalty to the state government, sold sand for about ₹ 20,000 per dumper, an illegal miner sold the same quantity of it to transporters for ₹8,000.
NOVEMBER 9, 2020 A 23-year-old constable, Sonu Chaudhary, was run over, allegedly on directions of a mining gangster, when a police team tried to intercept a tractor-trolley in Saiyan, Agra district. The constable was part of a seven-member police team led that had reached the Agra-Rajasthan border after receiving a tip-off about illegal miners.
JUNE 4, 2018 Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Dipendra Yadav of Gunnaur in Sambhal had a narrow escape as the sand mining mafia tried to mow him down with tractor trolleys. The SDM was trying to stop illegal mining operations near a tributary of the river Ganga when he was almost run over by sand-laden vehicles.
FEBRUARY 22, 2012 Noida-based anti-mining activist Pale Singh Chauhan was killed for raising his voice against unbridled mining. Chauhan had complained about massive illegal mining by one Rajpal, after which the latter was sent to jail, nearly a month before Chauhan was shot dead.
Manish Mishra, an RTI activist who has tipped-off government officials several times on illegal miners, said the builders’ lobby too has a strong involvement in the illegal practice. “In fact, they (builders/contractors) have a greater role since they benefit the most from the illegal sand mining,” he added.
Backing of local politicians, builders and officials
On the condition of anonymity,
a senior police officer posted in West UP told HT that the mining mafia is backed by a strong nexus of local politicians, builders and government officials. “The nexus between mafia and realtors were widely exposed after a Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) probe was ordered by the Allahabad High Court in 2016 when the Samajwadi Party was in power,” the official observed.
The CBI has since registered FIRs against then state mining
minister Gayatri Prajapati and several IAS and other government officers.
With a strict government and active sand mafias, the frequent skirmishes between police forces and illegal miners are but obvious.
A case in point: the Moradabad police on October 12 chased alleged mobster and illegal miner Zafar Ali to a village in Uttarakhand’s Uddham Singh Nagar district.
The issue snowballed into a major controversy with the police of the neighbouring state accusing their Uttar Pradesh counterparts of illegally entering the former’s territory and also without notice.
In another instance, illegal sand mining made the headlines when 13 sand-laden tractor-trolleys gave a skip to the police as they fled breaking the barriers at Saiyyan toll plaza in Agra on September 5.
A sub-divisional magistrate (SDM)-rank official and a mining department official were held captive as some of the assailants forcibly took away the seized trucks, in Moradabad on September 13.
Retaliation by police and district administration
The Agra police retaliated against the September 5 incident by registering 109 FIRs and arresting 44 persons.
They also seized more than 80 dumpers.