Another revenue official attacked by mafia in south Maharashtra
29 Jan 2011
Barely days after the killing of an additional district collector at Manmad in Maharashtra by the oil mafia, yet another revenue official was almost run over by members of a sand mafia in Sangli in the southern part of the state.
Srinivas Patil, a revenue official in a village in Sangli – which comes under the Tasgaon assembly constituency, from where the state's home minister, R R Patil, has won successive elections – was attacked by four members of a sand mining mafia about three days ago.
According to Patil, the revenue official, he stopped a tractor carrying sand from a near-by river and asked for the necessary papers. Instead of showing him the clearances, the driver and other persons attacked him with stones. When he called up the police and other district officials, they tried to run the tractor over him.
Patil says he escaped on his motor-cycle, but the miscreants chased him on their tractor for a few kilometres. The police later arrested four suspects. ''The government should crack down on the sand mafia in Sangli,'' says Patil.
Yeshwant Sonawane, the additional district collector of Nashik, who was posted in Malegaon, about 220 km north-east of Mumabi, was burnt to death earlier this week, after he challenged gangsters who were pilfering kerosene from a state-owned oil company's depot near Manmad.
Two days later, about 100,000 employees of the state's revenue department, went on a day-long strike, highlighting the dangers faced by them. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has promised tough action against the oil, sand and milk mafia in the state. The police launched a campaign, raiding about 200 places across the state, in a crackdown on the gangsters.
However, activists and government officials who initiate action against the mafia, continue to be targetted. Last year, about half-a-dozen Right to Information (RTI) activists were killed in Maharashtra, and several others injured by gangsters affected by their campaigns. This month alone, three RTI activists were attacked in Mumbai, Pune and Thane, for asking inconvenient questions about building and other projects.
Most of these attacks, however, occur in smaller towns and rural areas, away from television cameras and mass-circulated newspapers.