BENGALURU: Two people were caught red-handed by the Sarjapur police when they were allegedly extracting sand from a lake bed in the area on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, some residents of the area received a tip-off about sand mining taking place at Mugalur lake. Anil Kumar, a resident, said he and a few other residents saw an earthmover at the lake and informed the police, who arrived on the spot and detained two men and seized the earthmover.
“We lodged a complaint against the operators and also informed the area’s tehsildar about the incident,” Kumar said.
Residents of Sarjapur have been raising their voices against rampant sand mining from lake beds in the locality since the past few days. They have also lodged an FIR in this regard.
On Saturday morning, before the mining activity was discovered, residents had held a meeting to discuss the issues pertaining to sand mining.
They expressed concern over the trucks moving in and out of the lakes. A resident said the activities had had an adverse effect on the ecosystem of the lake, and heavy movement of trucks had damaged the roads in the area.
Residents alleged that the people responsible were employing hooligans to intimidate anyone who opposed them.
Jagadishwar, another resident, said owing to the presence of many IT firms in the area, the land around the lakes had became valuable and had led to several illegal activities being carried out in the area.
“The residents have planned a protest on October 30 to demand authorities to take action to stop these activities and rejuvenate the Doddakere lake,” he said.