Sand Mafia at Gaggar River every night
Nightly illegal sand mining in the Ghaggar
Every night, the riverbed of the Ghaggar is occupied by numerous JCBs and what seems like 80–100 trucks, extracting sand from the riverbed through the night.
It is genuinely heartbreaking to watch.
These machines are driving all over the riverbed, digging it up night after night, with seemingly no regard for the ecological consequences of what is being done to a natural river system.
What frustrates me even more is that this doesn't appear to be a secret operation. It happens every night, EVERY NIGHT on a scale that would seem impossible to carry out without someone knowing about it.
I looked into it online and found that there have been hundreds of FIRs and enforcement actions relating to illegal mining in and around the Ghaggar over the past decade. Yet the mining continues. Infact this matter also seems to be before the NATIONAL GREEN TRIBUNAL.
Do we just watch it happen and accept that this is how things are?
When the police and the administration is clearly unable or not willing to stop them, do we as citizens simply look away? Pretend this is not happening? What do we do?