ROURKELA: In a brazen daylight assault, police personnel were attacked by members of the sand mafia during an enforcement drive in Sundargarh district on Wednesday.
The incident took place at around 7 am near Ib river’s Amlipali Balughat under Sundargarh Town police limits, about 100 km from Rourkela.
A video clip of the incident, which went viral on social media, showed the miscreants arriving on two-wheelers and surrounding the police vehicle. Behaving violently and repeatedly hurling abuses, they could be seen kicking a constable and assaulting another with fist blows. Some of the miscreants were seen breaking tree branches for use as sticks. Others repeatedly provoked them to beat the cops
Outnumbered and overpowered, the helpless constables offered no resistance even as the miscreants kept hurling expletives and repeatedly demanded apology from them for daring to stop their sand-laden vehicles.
After assaulting the cops, the miscreants managed to free three of the four tractors seized for transporting illegally extracted sand before fleeing the spot.
Later, Sundargarh-based junior mining officer S Kalo lodged a complaint with police in connection with the incident. Kalo said as part of enforcement, a mining team and police seized four vehicles for illegally transporting sand. However, miscreants assaulted the police and escaped with three seized vehicles.
Sundargarh SP Amritpal Kaur said five persons involved in the assault on police personnel were identified and two of them apprehended. The rest three will be nabbed soon. The SP said vehicles used in illegal sand transportation would be identified and seized.
DIG (Western Range) Brijesh Kumar Rai said three teams have been engaged to nab the miscreants involved in the incident. Strict action would be taken against them.
The incident evoked sharp reactions with Sundargarh’s BJD MLA Jogesh Singh alleging that mining mafia was enjoying the patronage of the BJP government. “Facing no action, the mafia has lost fear for police and laws. Laxity in policing is another reason for growing morale of criminals,” he alleged.