Two weeks on, Haryana home guard evades police in mining case

Two weeks on, a Haryana home guard wanted in connection with an illegal mining case continues to evade the police. While the police are yet to make more arrests, the alleged involvement of “government and police officials” has come to fore, as mentioned by the police department in its application seeking remand of three individuals.

Meanwhile, the court of additional sessions judge Praveen Kumar Lal has rejected anticipatory bail applications of mining accused, Jaspreet Singh and Chhaja Singh.

The crime branch after receiving a tip-off had arrested Ram Sharan, Aadesh and Amardeep for illegal mining in areas of Chandimandir, Ramgarh, Mouli, Pinjore on November 27.

Its remand application accused the home guard, identified as Deepak, of being in cahoots with government officials and collecting money from the miners to hand it over to officials at the concerned police station for the illegal activity.

But two weeks on, the police are yet to make any major breakthrough in the case. The remand application also mentioned three Whatsapp groups, with 500 members each, being used to circulate information related to movement of vehicles for illegal mining. Police officials said their teams were still carrying out raids to nab the accused including the home guard.

DCP Himadri Kaushik said the police have not yet made any more arrests, but have listed-out individuals in connection with the case and are collecting evidence to nab them.

ASP Manpreet Singh Sudan added that the department officials had recovered 11 tippers and two JCB earth movers from the accused including another Sahil Rana and were working to arrest the others.

The additional sessions judge, meanwhile, rejected the bail application of Jaspreet Singh.

The court said the offences of the case were serious in nature, adding, “The custodial interrogation of the petitioner is required for the purpose of investigation and for effecting recoveries.”