Bijbehara: The sand miners, here in Bijbehara area of Anantnag district, have been brazenly vandalizing the Jhelum River with illegal use of heavy machinery and demolition of banks, wherever they deem fit.
Mining of sand and other minerals is rampant at many places along Jhelum River, here in Bijbehara. However at certain points not only have the miners breached the banks of river and drive their heavy vehicles straight into the water but they have also been using other heavy machinery like JCB’s and bulldozers.
“Use of heavy machinery is prohibited for extraction of sand. They are violating this prohibition and then they have been vandalizing the river banks,” a source in the local administration told Kashmir Reader.
The source laments that all this was happening right under the nose of the administration.
Recently, after the devastating floods of 2014, the state government spent significant amount of money on restoration of the Jhelum banks, along the stretch. The ‘sand mafia’ is breaching these banks for their own petty interests.
People in Pazalpora area of Bijbehara, where the banks have been breached at multiple paces, lament that they have been left all the more vulnerable to floods because of this.
“Not only are they harming the river, they are creating a situation where low level flood will leave us devastated,” a local in Pazalpora area told Kashmir Reader.
The local said that repeated pleas to the local administration have yielded no results.
“And we cannot confront these sand miners as they run a mafia hand in glove with the local administration,” the locals accused, “What else explains their blatant use of machinery and vandalism of the river banks if a nexus with the officials does not”
Kashmir Reader talked to the Sub-District Magistrate (SDM) Bijbehara, Muhammad Jahangeer Khanday, who assured that action will be taken against the culprits.
“Even today I had summoned them and cautioned them against the malpractices. The issue will be sorted out soon,” Khanday said.
The locals lament that nothing was going to change.
“These officials have summoning the and miners, even fining them, but nothing is changing, as they shift to other sports creating more mess,” the locals alleged.

Suhail A Shah