Criminal nexus: ED teams search two mining units in Una

Una, September 19

Officials from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today raided two mining firms in Una district of Himachal Pradesh. Two ED teams swung into action early morning and searched the premises of the firms at Charatgarh village in Una sub-division and Janani village in Haroli sub-division of the district.

One with Punjab & Canada links

• One of the raided individuals in Una didn’t own any mining lease
• The other raid was on a crusher linked to a high-profile personality
• The latter reportedly has business interests in Punjab, Canada

The raid at Charatgarh was conducted at the residence of an individual who was allegedly carrying out mining without having any mining lease. At Janani, a stone crusher located near the Swan riverbed and linked to a high-profile personality reportedly having business interests in Punjab and Canada was raided. The team later raided another crushing unit linked to the same individual at Fatehpur. Accompanied by a huge posse of security personnel, the teams concluded the raids in the afternoon, but didn’t divulge any details.

Illegal mining of sand, gravel and boulders has gone unchecked in the Swan riverbed in Una for the past about three decades, though its intensity has increased over the last 10 years. Amid a BJP-Congress blame game, the mining mafia has been plundering the natural resources, leading to environmental issues, besides causing damage to civil structures and embankments near the river, a green activist alleged.

A few residents had even complained to the NGT, which former a high-level committee in September 2021 and sent it on a fact-finding mission so as to recommend remedial measures to the state government. The NGT’s recommendations such as hiking the penalty on violators and banning heavy dredging machinery have not been implemented. Consequently, the mining mafia has been adopting unfair means such as transportation of undocumented material out of the river to Punjab, overloading tippers and digging beyond the permissible limit into the riverbed.