With the Karnataka government rejecting suggestions for a CBI probe, the Union Mines Ministry is pursuing other moves to crack down on the mining mafia in the state.
In the face of the Karnataka government’s resistance to a CBI probe, the matter was referred to the Cabinet and the issue was discussed in the Prime Minister’s office, Mines Minister B K Handique said. One of his concerns was whether any money from illegal mining was going to terrorists and the issue was discussed at the PMO.
Asserting that the “crackdown” on illegal mining was on the top of his agenda, Handique said that at present there were not enough legal provisions for central intervention and he would make attempts to incorporate provisions for this in the proposed Mining Act.
“There were discussions at the PMO level (on illegal mining). It would be tracked down. If money goes to terrorists, then licenses will be cancelled. It is a big thing. With NIA (National Investigation Agency) now, things are moving,” he said.
“We thought that CBI will be the right approach. But we can’t enforce it. We have given it to Cabinet now. We have asked them (their help) for investigation,” he said.
Asked to elaborate, he said that there was a provision in the law governing NIA and the Home Ministry may be on the path of tracking where the money was going. “They have been consulting us also on this,” he added.
Handique said the problem of not having adequate provisions in the law now was also discussed with Law Minister Veerappa Moily. “With Moily, we have discussed. We have discussed this with Chidambaram also. He had organised a meeting.”
Handique’s insistence on a probe and action in Karnataka comes against the backdrop of allegations of illegal mining by the Reddy brothers, who are ministers in the Karnataka government.
The current moves come at a time when Karnataka Governor and former Union Law Minister H S Bharadwaj has decided to refer to the Election Commission a complaint seeking disqualification of three ministers, including G Janardhana Reddy and his brother and Revenue Minister G Karunakara Reddy, from the state assembly.
Hitting out at the state government, Handique said, “Illegal mining is a dent on the industry… They (Karnataka government) don’t give (permission for CBI probe). They say without CBI enquiry we can control. We (Centre) cannot take any action. It is a criminal act.”
Admitting that he faced severe political pressure in his crusade against illegal mining, Handique said, “Many MPs have come to me…. (it is a) sensitive area, no doubt about it.”
He said the proposed legislation would ensure that anybody can file a case against illegal mining, contrary to the provisions in the existing MMDR Act, under which only state government officials have the powers.
Karnataka is one of the mineral rich states in India with about 11 percent f the country’s hematite iron ore reserves. It has over 9,000 million tonnes of iron ore resources concentrated in the Bellary-Hospet area, while the rest is found in the Chitradurga, Bagalkot and Tumkur districts.
Serbian mafia boss arrested over killing of Croatian journalist
Belgrade – Belgrade police on Monday arrested Serbia’s most powerful outlaw figure Sreten Jocic on suspicion of murdering Croatian editor and publisher Ivo Pukanic last year, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said. Dacic said Jocic, aka Joca Amsterdam, was arrested in a coordinated police action and that he is suspected of participating in the murder of Pukanic.
Jocic’s attorney briefly told journalists that the police were searching though his client’s house but made no other comment.
Belgrade B92 television reported that Jocic, 47, was arrested in the house of the late former president Slobodan Milosevic which he was renting in the upmarket Belgrade neighbourhood of Dedinje.
Pukanic, the editor of Nacional weekly, was a controversial figure in Croatia and had links with figures on both sides of the law. He and his marketing director were killed in a bomb blast in downtown Zagreb last October.
Croatian media reported last week that a witness told local police that the so-called cocaine king of Europe has organized and ordered the murder of Pukanic.
Serbian media are speculating that Jocic was also involved in the killing of two narcotics bosses in Belgrade last Friday when police found two charred bodies in the wreckage of a Jeep. Media reports that one of the men allegedly owed Jocic half a million euros.
In the early 1990s Jocic was a cocaine boss in the Netherlands where he was arrested in 1993, after which he fled to Bulgaria to become the local drug boss.
Bulgaria extradited him in 2002 to the Netherlands but he was released due to lack of evidence. He awaits trial in Serbia over his suspected connection with several murders.
The murder of Pukanic shook the Croatian public and local police promptly arrested several suspects. Serbian media reports say that a former member of the Serbian security forces suspecting of having planted the bomb is still at large.(dpa)