“Nothing new”, is what Bihar education minister Chandra Shekhar said about a sand mafia tractor mowing down a police sub-inspector this week. The recent killings of police and government officials by the sand mafia reflect a full-fledged return of jungle raj in Bihar. The sand mafias have grown influential to an extent in the state that they are allegedly running parallel governments in their strongholds.
Following the prohibition of all liquor businesses in Bihar, sand mining has grown into one of the state government’s primary sources of revenue. It also awards mining contracts to businesses to extract sand from various rivers for construction purposes. Consequently, mining pockets are acquired by strongmen in numerous regions along rivers such as the Sone, Ganga, Gandak, Kosi, Parman, and many more.
According to reports, the Bihar government earned an all-time high revenue of Rs 1384.46 crore from sand mining during the fiscal year 2022-23. However, it is said that the sand business in Bihar is way bigger which leads to gang wars and clashes among sand mafias to establish their dominance and monopoly in the market.
In the last five days, three murders in sand mafia-related incidents have rocked the state. Meanwhile, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) accused leaders of the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of involvement in the business.
BJP Spokesperson Arvind Kumar Singh alleged that the sand mafia is running a parallel economy in Bihar asserting that the sand market in the state goes beyond Rs 25 lakh crore. Singh alleged that these sand mafias have connections with RJD supremo Lalu Yadav’s family and that the mafias grow stronger whenever RJD comes to power. He further claimed that the sand mafia-related murders are taking place “under the protection of state-owned agencies and political parties.”
The police are claiming that they are taking action against them still many murders, including that of police personnel, are taking place due to the war of supremacy between various gangs. The mafia is doing rampant mining in various rivers and the money generated from it will be used in the forthcoming elections,” the BJP leader said.
On November 14, a police sub-inspector and in-charge of Garhi Police Station Prabhat Ranjan was mowed down by a tractor transporting sand illegally near Mahulia Tand village in Bihar’s Jamui district. Two people were also injured in the incident, including a home guard. The injured duo was admitted to a hospital.
Speaking to Times of India, ADG (HQ) JS Gangwar said that attacks and killings like the one in Jamui in sand related case are “nothing new”. However, Gangwar added that it was the first incident involving a policeman in the recent past. One of the accused was arrested in the matter.
Following the incident, Bihar Education Minister Chandra Shekhar made a shocking and insensitive remark after learning about the incident. Speaking to IndiaToday, he said, “Such incidents are nothing new.” He argued that such incidents keep happening. He added that such incidents have happened in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the past.
Shockingly, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswhi Yadav when asked by the media about the incident, said that he had no information about the killing of the police officer.
Before this, a similar incident was reported on November 1, when a police constable was crushed to death by a sand mafia’s tractor in Aurangabad. The incident unfolded in the night when a team of NTPC Khaira police received information that the sand mafia moving sand illegally on tractors. Accordingly, NTPC Khaira police set up barriers on the Kanker Road in Madhepur village. When a sand-laden tractor reached the barriers, Home Guard Rajaram Mahto signalled the driver to stop. The driver, however, instead of stopping the tractor accelerated and mowed down Rajaram Mahto before leaving. A day after, sand smugglers attacked a team of the Mining Department. The attack on November 2 left one Constable injured.
On the morning of November 17, a speeding truck carrying sand struck and killed a 35-year-old man named Sachin Turi, who was driving to the nearby market, on the Kohbarwa-Jhajha road in Jinhara Bazar. The driver subsequently fled the scene.
On November 15, two teenage boys were killed in the same district by a speeding sand truck. One of the victims Aayush Kumar died on the scene, while his friend Rakesh Kumar was badly injured. The event transpired on the Dadpur-Kabar main road in Machindra Village, in the Jhajha police station precinct.
In April of this year, three mining department officers, including a woman officer, sustained injuries in a stone pelting incident while on inspection and search operations in the Patna district’s Bihta block. Later, 44 people were arrested and 50 vehicles were seized by police. Kumar Gaurav, a district mining officer in Patna, and mining inspectors Syed Farhin and Amya Kumari were among those injured.
The list of attacks and killings in sand mafia-related cases can on and on. The question here arises how will the JDU-RJD government stop sand mafias from thriving in the state with impunity and eliminating anyone who dares to stop their illegal businesses? Especially when a minister dismisses such incidents as “nothing new” insinuating that it is normal that people are randomly mowed down by sand mafias and that people should not outrage much over it.
It is worth noting that since the Rashtriya Janata Dal came to power through an alliance with Janata Dal (United)’s Nitish Kumar, such crimes have increased dramatically in Bihar. This is reminiscent of Bihar’s Jungle Raj years in the 1990s when Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD and his wife Rabri Devi were the state’s chief ministers.
