Madhya Pradesh Minister for Public Works and Environment Department Sajjan Singh Verma has warned that no land mafia and antisocial elements will be spared in the crackdown unleashed by the Congress government in the State.
“No harasser will be spared by the tempest of the drive,” said Mr. Verma.
Given a “free hand” by Chief Minister Kamal Nath, the authorities, amid allegations of expedient, politically motivated action, have brought down hundreds of illegal structures and apprehended scores of alleged kingpins enabling drug, land, sand and forest mafia and extortion rackets.
‘Clean and healthy M.P.’
“Mr. Nath wants a swachh [clean[), swasth [healthy] and surakshit [safe] Madhya Pradesh. Mafia of all kinds have flourished in the last 15 years under the BJP government,” claimed Mr. Verma.
On December 12, the Chief Minister had announced a law similar to the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act that would be enacted to curb organised mafia in the State.
In Bhopal district alone, 53 acres of land worth ₹46 crore has been freed in 19 locations in the last week, according to the Collectorate. “The police are already apprehending those at the bottom, but the drive is about nabbing the kingpins. It’s not just an anti-encroachment initiative, but also an anti-mafia one,” Bhopal Collector Tarun Kumar Pithode said.
Demolition of illegal establishments of Indore-based Jitu Soni, a businessman and owner of an eveninger, marked the drive’s start on December 5. Mr. Soni’s daily had published reports indicting senior government officials in the inter-State multicrore “honeytrap scandal”. Four days later, complying with a High Court order, the Bhopal administration razed a building housing the office of a journalists’ union.
State BJP president Rakesh Singh has accused the Congress government of playing “vendetta politics”. “In the garb of the drive, those having connections with the BJP are being targeted, while those friendly to the government are left untouched,” he alleged.
