Fortunately, the SDM escaped unhurt, though the official jeep sustained damage. Police and district administration officials later impounded two overloaded tractor-trolleys transporting illegal sand.
Widespread illegal riverbed mining by the sand mafia is being blamed for aggravating the destruction, although the quality of construction of the infrastructure is also being questioned.
A team of journalists, including Imran Memon, Thaneshwar Sahu, and Jitendra Sinha, visited the site to document illegal sand transportation after alerting district mining authorities.
This triggered sharp protests from the treasury benches, leading to a heated verbal duel.
The state BJP is going to organize a movement against the sand mafia, who are allegedly digging up sand from the Damodar river basin, across the state.
A Division Bench of Justices MS Ramesh and Sunder Mohan ruled that the ED has overstepped its remit in registering the case.
More than 2-km stretch of river bank, from Guptipara Surya Mandir onwards is undergoing a massive erosion at an alarming rate.
Chadha said, “After becoming the CM, Channi had said ‘sand mafia should not come to me, I am not the chief minister of sand mafia'.
According to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, sand has been mined at rates greatly exceeding natural replenishment rates.
BJP district unit president Kandra Soren said that the BJP had drawn attention of the district collector but no action has been taken till date.
