Tension prevails in the mining belt of southern Bihar’s forests a day after the state police launched raids on illegal stone quarries in the Kaimur Hills area of Rohtas district and lodged two FIRs against former president of the BJP’s Bihar unit, Gopal Narayan Singh.
Despite attacks by the mining mafia, teams of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Bihar police and the forest department officials seized mining equipment from the illegal quarries inside the protected forest area and arrested six people, including a police constable, on Tuesday. The constable, the official bodyguard of Singh, helped the mining mafia flee with two of the seized JCB machines, said the police. One of the arrested men, Sunil Choudhary, is reportedly related to chief minister Nitish Kumar’s security in-charge Balram Choudhary.
Police sources said the arrested men told the EOW officials that the former Bihar BJP president was among those actively involved in illegal mining in Kaimur Hills, which is currently spread across 300 acres as against only 70 acres of hills earlier leased for mining. EOW officials also reportedly learnt that illegal mining was flourishing there with covert support from the local police, district administration, mining and forest departments. This was the reason the raids were kept a secret from the local police stations and the district administrations, they said.
Mr Singh has earlier had four cases lodged against him by the police for illegal mining and possession of explosives. Efforts to contact him for a comment failed. In February, a police team had raided the illegal quarries in Kaimur Hills and faced attacks from alleged goons working for the mining mafia.