Greens took on Bellary miners

SANDUR (BELLARY): Normally, their hands are busy wielding agriculture implements or milking cows or doing household chores. But over the past six months, a group of youths is busy accompanying investigating teams of Lokayukta and Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC).

The green brigade, popularly know as Veeranna Group, have done what several police and forest officials failed to do — unravelling illegal mining and encroachment. The team headed by Veeranna Mulimani is widely familiar with the mining geography and statistics in the region — they even won appreciation from former Lokayukta Justice Santosh N Hegde and CEC head P V Jayakrishnan.

“I presented a talk to Justice Hegde for about 45 minutes in the guest house at Kumarswamy forest range when he came with his team to investigate illegal mining. After I gave him the firsthand-account substantiating it with documents, he was quite impressed that he gave a big pat on my back,” said Veeranna, a marginal farmer who heads the group.

He and his team have been fighting against powerful miners, including the Lads and Ghorpades, for over 10 years now. “We feel very happy and satisfied about the Supreme Court ban on mining in Bellary. We only hope the court will not give permission till the lost greenery here is fully regained,” said Hanumantha, one of the key members of the group.

The unsung green activist said the miners tried all sorts of tricks to lure them since they launched their struggle since 2006. “They also harassed us by sacking our parents who were working as labourers in a mining company (SMIORE) run by Ghorpade. Yet we didn’t given up,” Hanumatha said with pride.