Mining mafia on Friday evening tried to crush a young and promising IAS officer of 2010 batch in Roorkee, Haridwar after the officer tried to stop a tractor loaded with gravel that was illegally mined. Anyhow the young officer escaped the attempt on her life.
lodging an FIR into the matter against two persons, Sadat and Musharraf, police have arrested one of them. While Sadat has been arrested, Musharraf is still at large. Despite all this, police rejected the media reports about attempt to crush the young woman officer at Roorkee by the mining mafia.
According to sources, the police have lodged a complaint into the matter, but efforts to hide the matter raises questions over the police functioning. Even SSP Haridwar, while talking to The Pioneer on mobile, denied any such incident. SSP Haridwar Rajeev Swaroop said, “There was no attack by the mining mafia on Roorkee’s Joint Magistrate Sonika as reported by a section of the media.”
He narrated another story. “The Joint Magistrate went to Solani river for inspection last night. But there was no attack on her. Even she has not lodged any complaint with police so far,” the SSP said, adding that if she gives a complaint then the police will lodge an FIR. Meanwhile, the SSP has instructed the local police to conduct an inquiry into it.
Sources, however, claimed that the police have lodged an FIR in this regard. SDM Roorkee Veer Singh Buddhiyal confirmed the attack on the IAS officer. He said that during the inspection, when Joint Magistrate Sonika tried to stop a tractor loaded with sand, mined illegally from the riverbed, the driver of the tractor, instead of following her instruction to stop the vehicle, accelerated the tractor towards IAS Sonika’s vehicle.
Sensing the trouble, the driver of the IAS officer’s vehicle turned the vehicle towards the fields and saved the officer. He further added that on August 22 night, she had seized a tractor fully loaded with gravel (construction material), which was illegally mined from riverbed, at Puhana. Those involved in the mining, however, managed to take away the seized vehicle.
On August 23, when they saw similar checking drive by JM Sonika, they tried to crush her but her driver managed to save her. Meanwhile, high speed tractor carrying mining material fled the scene. Moreover, the Joint Magistrate has not lodged any report in this matter. A section of the media carried reports this morning saying there was an attempt by the mining mafia to run over the officer when she went to the river last night to check quarrying.
It is alleged that the mining mafia are being patronised by the politicians and have been giving hefty amount to the police. Due to these they pretend they are above the law and dare to crush whosoever comes on their way, sources said.