Haryana DSP killing puts spotlight back on illegal mining in Aravalli hills

On July 19, at 11.45 am, Surender Singh Bishnoi, deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of Haryana’s Nuh district, got a tip-off. A dumper was involved in illegal stone mining deep inside the Aravalli hills in the Tauru region of the district. He and his unit decided to nab the culprit on the spot.

To reach the site, one needs to go through a narrow corridor paved reportedly by the locals illegally. The single corridor reportedly takes one deep inside the hills, where mining can easily be performed, away from prying eyes, as the site is surrounded by tall hills. The corridor is said to be just wide enough for a dumper to pass through.

After getting information on the site, DSP Bishnoi led a police team and reached the location using that narrow corridor. It was there that he was run over by the dumper and later died. The police caught the driver of the dumper a day after and are still hunting for the other culprits, who likely have fled to neighbouring states.

SC’s 2009 ban on mining

Illegal stone mining in the Aravalli region is not a recent activity – it has been going on for years and the administration has been unable to put a check on it. The Aravalli, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, is almost 700-km long, starting from Gujarat, running through Rajasthan and Haryana before finishing at Raisina hill in Delhi. Full of minerals, it acts as a barrier protecting parts of Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi from dust and sandstorms coming from the Thar desert.

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In 2009, the Supreme Court had slapped a complete ban on mining in the Aravalli hills in Faridabad, Gurugram and Mewat (of which Nuh is a part) to restore the hills to their traditional ecological value. The 2009 order said all mining activities must be suspended till statutory provisions for restoration and reclamation were complied with, particularly in cases where pits or quarries had been abandoned.

On the contrary, as the dumper incident showed, the culprits have become a law on to themselves and do not fear the police or the administration.

Locals explain what happened

The Federal visited the area and spoke to local people to find out more about the incident. An elderly man, on the condition of anonymity, agreed to explain the situation on ground.

“These stone or mining mafia people have cut a way through the hills — a very narrow way to reach the other side of the hill and excavate stones. The way is almost like a tunnel. The dumper driver was left with no choice after spotting the police at the site but to escape through the corridor. The senior police officer placed himself in the corridor, expecting the driver to stop the dumper. But the driver mowed him down to save himself and his master in the mafia. The driver ran the dumper over the DSP, who had no space to save himself in the narrow corridor; he died on the spot,” he said.

The incident has opened a Pandora’s box, with authorities talking in different voices. While the Nuh SP said it was a ‘local’ crime by villagers, the state mining minister called it a crime by the well-established mafia.

While AAP’s Haryana chief Sushil Gupta lambasted the BJP-led state government, terming mining a big racket resulting in a huge loss of revenue, former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Bhupender Singh Hooda, demanded a thorough probe into the killing of DSP Bishnoi.

Anil Vij, Haryana Home Minister, said: “We will end the mining mafia, and have ordered police to arrest the culprit and dumper owner also.” Assembly Speaker Gyan Chand Gupta held an emergency meeting of leaders and senior police officers on July 20 to devise a plan to end mining. Later that day, the Haryana police arrested the driver from Rajasthan involved in the killing of DSP Bishnoi.

The ruling BJP government in Haryana is in the dock this time. The party had raised the illegal mining issue in the Assembly during the previous Congress government and had alleged direct involvement of many ministers. However, in March 2021, the Haryana government sought the Supreme Court’s approval to begin mining in the Aravallis in Gurugram and Faridabad districts. The case is still pending.

Lackadaisical approach 

A person close to DSP Bishnoi told media that his killing has exposed the lackadaisical approach of the government in ending illegal mining.

The incident has put the Rajasthan government on the alert, too. The mining mafia uses the Gurugram-Sohna-Nuh-Alwar highway to transport sand stones for construction to Faridabad and other cities.

The locals at Tauru in Nuh held a peaceful protest a day after the incident, demanding not only the arrest of the culprits but a complete closure of mining. They are demanding that the police and administration ban the use of dumpers in the entire Nuh district as illegal mining is carried out in broad daylight with the help of these dumpers.

Not the first such incident

Tahir, from Tauru, said: “Alwar, Tauru, Firozpur Jhirka, Punhana, Sohna are illegal mining zones. Hundreds of dumpers ply carrying stones violating transport rules and they run over police on their way.”

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“The incident that has happened with Surendra Singh is not new. Many years ago, a policeman was publicly crushed to death by a dumper in the Tauru region near a police station,” he said. Tahir recalled that in 2013, a dumper being chased by the police trampled many vehicles and reached Hodal Chowk in Nuh. There was a lot of hue and cry then and police vehicles were also set on fire.

Yet another similar incident happened on the night of December 16, 2021. The present SP of Nuh district, Varun Singla, a couple of months after taking charge on October 25, 2021, was on the road to check on overloaded dumpers. After he had caught 12 overloaded vehicles, an attempt was made on his life when a dumper tried to run over his official vehicle. SP Singla narrowly escaped and the police registered a case.

In fact, on July 18, 2022, just a day before DSP’s killing, a group of locals had attacked policemen in village Sirauli under Punhana police station area and a case was registered against half-a-dozen people.

“The DSP fell prey to the mining mafia. Incidents like beating up policemen, setting a police post or a station or a vehicle on fire have also been reported quite often in the Nuh region. If the police themselves are unsafe, forget about the safety of the common man. The Nuh-Alwar route is a dumper corridor and these dumpers kill people who they feel a threat from,” said a senior journalist reporting on mining for years in the region.

Aravallis, an eco-sensitive area

To safeguard the ecological wealth of the Aravallis, the Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement (ABCM), a group of activists working to protect the  Aravallis, filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal (NGT). On May 23, the NGT asked the state pollution control board and government authorities to submit a factual report, and take steps to prevent illegal mining in 16 locations across three districts of south Haryana — Faridabad, Gurugram, Palwal and Nuh, as alleged in the ABCM’s petition. The tribunal formed a committee to visit all 16 locations and submit its report, which is expected to be filed in August at the next NGT hearing.

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Many environment experts are of the opinion that because of massive degradation of the Aravallis and large scale deforestation, the average annual rainfall in south Haryana’s Rewari, Nuh, Faridabad and Gurugram districts has decreased from 700 mm to 550-590 mm.

Professor Gauhar Mehmud, a senior professor at New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, said, “The deforestation has been happening because of the mining, yet the state government is less sensitive on ground. The killing of DSP should be the last incident if the government wants to protect Aravalli and its ecology.”