Raid on Illegal Sand Mining, Labourer Jumps to Phalguni River, dies
Bantwal: A labourer who was involved in illegal sand mining jumped into the Phalguni river and drowned when the police raided the spot at Mullarpattana here on October 26.
The deceased has been identified as Shariff ( 30). According to the police on October 26, they received a call about the illegal sand mining at Mullarpattana, Margadangadi Bantwal. Based on the information the Bantwal Rural police raided the spot. After seeing the police, Sheriff tried to escape by jumping into the river Phalguni but drowned.
The police and the fire tenders searched for Sheriff and the body was later retrieved from the river.
SP Bhushan Borase visited the spot. As soon as the incident took place, a large number of public gathered and protested demanding the DC to visit the spot. The locals did not allow to lift the body from the water. Locals also damaged the police vehicles. Additional police have been deployed to bring the situation under control.
Really sad. He didn’t have to die trying to escape from Police. This incident highlights two bigger issues:
1. Bureaucracy and lack of any comprehensive policy resulting in an artificial shortage of sand
2. Lack of education and opportunities pushing people into Illegal activities
In India, we discuss a lot about the first topic. However, we (especially the media) are too afraid to touch the second topic. Similar to minorities here in US, one particular minority in India commits overwhelming amount of illegal activities as compared to the % of total population. They also have tendency to always try and escape from police. We have seen a number of incidents where these guys get involved in high speed chase trying to escape from police while illegally trafficking cows. I wish we had a few true journalists (not stenographers) and independent thinkers (not pseudo, self-declared rationalists) to look into this social issue and help minority community come out of this depressing situation they are currently in.
Well…