A team of Hazaribagh police has seized huge amount of explosives from the sites of illegal mines running in Ichak and Padma area. The team raided the sites of more than dozen illegal stone mines in the surrounding areas of the town in the last two-three days.
After the successful raids, Hazaribagh SP Akhilesh Jha said: "We acted after receiving complaints from people that illegal coal and stone mining are damaging the natural beauty of the area." The team first conducted raids on the illegal stone mines near famous picnic spot Chameli waterfall situated in Ichak block. More than 1000 piece of gelatin, wires and drill machines were recovered.
After that the team raided the stone crushers near the surrounding areas of Hazaribagh National Park. From there the team recovered explosives, one jeep and two stone crushing machines. Also, one person was arrested.
Some local villagers said due to the activities of illegal stone chips mafia, the National Park, Salparni and Chameli waterfall are in danger. Sources said more than 100 illegal stone crushers were operational in the surrounding areas of Hazaribagh town harming the environment too.
It was only in the last one month that the State Government started to take up the matter seriously. Commissioner SS Meena had instructed the district and police officials of North Chotanagpur division in two consecutive meetings to take necessary steps to stop illegal mining of coal and stone. A team headed by Barhi Sub Divisional Police Officer Avinash Kumar with a dozen of police officers and forces was constituted some days ago by SP Jha to end the illegal activities.