Corbett horror: Mining mafia gang member held for killing forest officer

A forest department beat watcher was run over, allegedly by members of a mining mafia gang, on the riverbank near Corbett National Park on Friday night.

As per a report in The Times of India, the accused ran over the beat guard with a tractor. Two other forest officials were tied up by the accused, but were later freed by the police.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat instructed the police to nab the accused within 24 hours, following which the cops announced the arrest of the main accused, Jaswant Singh.

Apart from the killing of the beat watcher, two more incidents of assault on forest department staff took place in Udham Singh Nagar district on the same day. The first was in Kulwant Nagar where a team of the forest department was attacked when they tried to seize illegal timber.

The border area between Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital has been notorious for illegal mining activity which is usually centred near towns like Ramnagar and Bajpur. Assault on forest department officials and police are also becoming increasingly common. In April 2015, a trainee IFS officer, Kalyani Bisht, was attacked by a group of around 50 people in the Bailpadao area of Ramnagar while she was conducting a raid near the Dabka riverbed where illegal mining was going on. Two people were arrested in the case.