Aravalli Bachao team accompanies cops to show illegal mining

Gurgaon: Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement team accompanied two Badshahpur police station officers on a 7km trek deep into the Aravalli forest in Pandala hills on June 19 to show them the illegal mining that is happening there and how it is degrading the place. 

The group members want the police and government to take strict action against those carrying out illegal mining activities in Pandala hills and Aravalli forest.

The team shared videos and pictures from the trek on several social media platforms and they can be seen talking about filing a complaint against illegal mining on April 15 and demanding action against it. A member of the team can be heard in a video saying, “On 15th April, Aravalli Bachao team filed a complaint addressing the CM, Deputy CM, mining department, forest department, DC Gurugram, DC Faridabad against the illegal mining. After sending a third reminder on 31st May, the next day on 1st June, Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala responded and sought action, following which we got an email from SHO, Badshahpur police station. Today we have two police officers with us here who have taken photographs of the site and we’re still hearing the sounds of blasts.”

She further says, “We have got an aerial mapping done of this area and according to that survey, illegal mining has been taking place for 5 years in different areas of Pandala hills. According to the Supreme Court orders, mining is totally banned in Aravalli, so this is in contempt of the court's order and we want the Haryana government to stop this."

#AravalliBachao citizens group members hike deep into the Aravalli forest with the Badshahpur police station officers to show @gurgaonpolice degradation in the beautiful Pandala area happening as a result of illegal mining.@cmohry @Dchautala @DC_Gurugram #StopIllegalMining pic.twitter.com/ZIxuBvkEFU

— Aravalli Bachao (@AravalliBachao) June 19, 2021

To understand the situation better, CitySpidey spoke with Neelam Ahluwalia, an active member of the Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement about the visit to Panadala hills in presence of the Badshahpur cops. “It was fairly evident that illegal mining has been going on and the police officials witnessed that. They also took pictures of the site and are supposed to file a report addressing the higher authorities,” she said. 

While talking about further plans, Ahluwalia said, "After this exercise of visiting the site with the cops, we have gotten in touch with Bhondsi police station, Sohna Police station and one police station in Faridabad to repeat this exercise. In our complaint, we mentioned four places where illegal mining is taking place and we plan to visit all those sites with concerned police officials. Tomorrow, we are going with Bhondsi police officials to the Aravalli Belt that falls under their region. Later this week, we plan to visit Damdama with Sohna police officials. After this exercise is done, we’ll move to higher concerned authorities like DC
Gurugram, DC Faridabad and so on to take further actions.”

CitySpidey also spoke to Inspector Pramod, one of the cops who accompanied the Aravalli Bachao team to the trek and asked him what he saw there. He said, “We saw some pits there, it looked like mining had been done. However, there were only little traces of recent activities. We have taken pictures and videos of the site, we’ll give the firsthand report to our SHO and he’ll guide us on what actions to take further. Also, strict action will be taken if any activity is reported in that area.”