Suspected illegal miners thrash forest officials, 1 held

Kota (Rajasthan):

Two men, involved in illegal mining, have been booked for allegedly thrashing a watchman and a forest guard in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district, police said on Saturday, adding the prime accused has been arrested.

The incident took place in the Harigarh forest area on Friday evening when Chotulal Bheel and his accomplice were asked by the officials to pull up their trolley, loaded with illegally extracted stones, they said.

A case was registered at Panwar police station on complaint of forest guard, Narender Nagar, under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code, Station House officer (SHO) Ashok Kumar said.

According to the complaint, Bheel and his aide thrashed the guard and the watchman, Manoj Kumar, and ran away with the trolley.

Bheel was arrested, few hours after the incident, police said, adding the tractor trolley was seized from him.

The two forest personnel sustained minor injuries in the incident, the SHO said.

The attempts were underway to nab the other accused.