A farmer’s arrest in Fazilka district of Punjab on the and sand mining has kicked up a social media backlash against both the state police force and the administration, with Opposition leaders training their guns on the Bhagwant Mann led AAP government for allegedly trying to protect “big fishes” involved.
A farmer, identified as Krishan Singh, was arrested on May 2 by Fazilka police on the basis of a tip-off that the man was mining sand in his field. The police, after conducting a raid and arresting Singh from Mohar Singh Wala Assembly constituency of Jalalabad, claimed to have seized a mortar pan, a hoe, as well as 5 kilos of sand that had been mined by the man, and Rs 100 from his possession.
The SHO of Jalalabad Sadar police station, which conducted the arrest, later claimed that Krishan Singh was carrying out illegal mining in around three kanals on his agricultural land. The SHO, however, had vehemently denied claims of five kilos of sand having been recovered from the accused.
“It is fake news being spread that we had arrested Krishan Singh with five kilograms of sand. We had actually collected five kilos of sand from his field for the purpose of sampling. The raid was conducted in coordination with the excise department. It is true that we recovered a hoe and mortar pan from the accused. People are making fun of us on social media because they think that we only recovered five kilos of sand from the possession of the accused,” the SHO said.
“There can’t be any mining without permission of the excise department. But Krishan Singh had carried out mining up to 8.5 feet in his land. People blame us for not taking action against illegal sand mining. But when we take action, they make fun of us,” added the SHO.
The Aam Aadmi Party had swept to power in the state on the plank of cracking down on illegal sand mining in the state, which in the run-up to the March polls had seen erstwhile CM, Charanjit Singh Channi‘s, nephew being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate.
In the run-up to Punjab assembly elections, Aam Adami Party supremo, Arvind Kejriwalhad sought Channi’s arrest and had promised that his party would conduct a fair investigation against the former Congress CM and his aides in the illegal sand mining if voted to power.
Interestingly, Jalalabad has always remained under the lens of being the hub of illegal mining in the state, which often involves the use of mammoth ming machines that can drill deep in the earth to extract sand.
The constituency, which was the stronghold of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Badal till his defeat in the last elections, has so far never seen any major sand mining racket being busted. That seems to be one other reason why the arrest of Krishan Kumar with a hoe and mortar pan has attracted the attention of so many people.
On April 9, Punjab Congress MLA, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, had asked CM Bhagwant Mann to bring out a white paper on the illegal sand mining in the last 10 years that he said would expose everyone involved.
“Before the elections, the AAP had claimed that theft of sand worth Rs 20,000 crore was taking place in the state. If the AAP-led government does not reveal the names of the people involved in this theft then we will have to assume that their why were frivolous and bogus. We will also then get to know that the state was trying to protect the mining mafia, corrupt officers, and politicians,” Khaira had said. It was then believed that Khaira’s challenge to the AAP to expose the names of politicians was also aimed at his rivals within the Congress party.
Police have sometimes linked the illegal sand mining mafia with the drug smuggling one like in the case of an FIR filed against former Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia. Recently, the Punjab police had arrested one Jagtar Singh Jagga with RDX, which he was trying to ferry in a tractor trolly used for transportation of sand in the border area of Ajnala.
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