Woman Forest Officer attacked in MP’s Morena by Sand Mafia

BHOPAL / A woman forest officer was attacked by the mining mafia on Wednesday night when she was on patrol to curb the illegal excavation and transportation of sand around the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary (NCGS), located on the Chambal river in Morena of Madhya Pradesh.

However, the Sub Divisional Officer of Forest, Shraddha Pandhare escaped unhurt in the incident but some staff members are injured. This is the ninth attack on Shraddha in the last two months.

Pandhare along with the forest department staff was on patrol meanwhile, she found some illegal sand-laden vehicles on the road. She and her staff confiscated the vehicles and informed the Deogarh police station nearby. Forest officer, Pandhare demanded help from the Station House officer to send the police to the spot for taking further actions on the mining mafia and handing over the seized vehicles but no help arrived.

After that, the forest staff themselves started to take the seized vehicles to the police station. Meanwhile, some people of the Pathanpura village blocked the road by putting barbed wires and attacked Pandhare and her staff with weapons like guns, axes, sticks, etc. When the forest officer was attacked by the mob, a forest employee tried to protect her and in the process, he got injured.

“Police are not cooperating with the forest department in the action against the mafia rather they assist them because they regularly pay bribes to the police”, SDO Forest, Shraddha told The Sun Today. “We requested the police yesterday but they didn’t come to the spot and they didn’t register an FIR against the mafia in appropriate sections of the IPC”, She said.

It was in Morena where a young IPS officer Narendra Kumar was killed by the sand mafia by crushing him beneath the tractor-trolley in 2012. Just like that, deputy ranger forest Subedar Singh was crushed to death when he tried to stop a tractor-trolley laden with illegally mined sand in September 2018.

The NCGS is a tri-state (MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) protected area, 5,400 square km on the Chambal, river for protecting the critically endangered alligator. Despite this, the mafia continues to mine sand and sandstones with impunity.