Sand mining mafia unleashes terror in Narayanpet

Narayanpet: Thanks to lackadaisical attitude on the part of the Revenue and police officials, the sand mafia has once again embarked on the path of violence and attacking villagers and farmers if they raised their voice against illegal sand mining in Poosalapadu village under Marikal mandal in Narayanpet district.

According to Satyanarayan Reddy, a villager from Poosalapadu village, the illegal sand mining is being carried out with impunity from a rivulet that is passing by the village. This rampant sand mining has led to groundwater level in the village falling drastically and the bore wells and open wells drying up. Acute shortage of drinking water and water for irrigation has arisen. The villagers at first gave a representation to the police and the Revenue officials in Marikal mandal. But neither the Revenue officials nor the police took action against the sand mafia. "We have given complaints to the mandal Tahsildar and even to the police inspector. They promised to take action, but nothing had happened," the villagers said.

"Fed up with this, we formed a group in the village and resisted the sand mining mafia. On Friday as many as three tractors were deployed to illegally transport sand from 11.30 pm to 4 am. We tried to stop them. The goons attacked us and injured our people. We could manage to puncture the tractor tyres and they left the sand on the way and drove away the tractors," said Satyanarayana Reddy.

The villagers represented to District Collector S Venkat Rao and Superintendent of Police Chetana, requesting them to ensure that illegal sand mining is stopped. "We have got a representation from the villagers, we will take strict action against those whoever is involved in the illegal mining of sand," said the Collector.