Illegal mining is rampant in the country and the mafia is ruling the roost. High time they are dealt with strictly.
So far, the murder of 57-year-old Haryana Police DSP Surender Singh at Tauru in Haryana’s Nuh district has evoked Pro-forma responses from those who matter. The Pioneer reported, “Haryana ADGP (law and order) Sandeep Khirwar said a case under IPC sections 302 (murder), 307, 333, 186, 353 along with 379 and 188 has been registered, and the police will come out with full progress report very soon.” Reacting to the incident, the report added,
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said in the case of murder of the Tauru DSP, orders have been given to take strict action. He announced a relief of Rs 1 crore to the family of the fallen cop and a job to one of his family members. Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda called the incident shameful: “Mining mafia is going out of hand. Law and order situation is deteriorating.
MLAs are being threatened, police are also not safe. How will the public feel safe? The Government needs to act.”
Everything said and done by everyone is routine. But illegal mining is a much bigger menace to be tackled with routine reactions — not just in Haryana but also in other parts of the country. In March 2012, a young Indian Police Service officer Narendra Kumar Singh was mowed down in a similar fashion in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district. The culprits, in this case, were members of an illegal mining gang.
In 2013, a 2009-batch Indian Administrative Service officer Durga Shakti Nagpal took on Noida’s illegal sand mining mafia, filing 66 police cases, arresting 104 people, and seizing 81 vehicles engaged in the operations between February and July. She was fortunate that she didn’t meet the fate of Narendra Kumar Singh, but she did face the consequences. The state government suspended her, though the suspension was revoked a couple of months later.
Two points need to be made here. First, gone are the days when even the most dreaded criminals and mafia dons were reluctant to physically eliminate cops. For they knew that the police don't just enforce the Indian Penal Code but also their own code, and in the latter the greatest crime is cop killing. Now even the foot soldiers in mining gangs have the temerity to murder not just constables but also senior officers.
Second, gone are also the days when Pro-forma statements like ‘culprits won’t be spared’ and routine measures like compensation to the dead cop’s family will suffice. There is something rotten in the statecraft of India. Mining gangs and other mafias are not some deranged psychopaths or some outlandish villains like Mogambo of the movie Mr. India; they are very much part of our society and, worse, political economy. They are not an external enemy; they are like cancer, debilitating the body-politic and occasionally causing big pain, such as the murder of Tauru DSP. The treatment of cancers is cut, poison, and burn. Are our political masters ready for that?
