Madhya Pradesh IPS officer crushed to death by mining mafia

An Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Narendra Kumar posted in Banmore town in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena District was allegedly killed by mining mafia on Thursday.

Police said IPS Kumar was trying to stop a tractor that was over-loaded with illegal stones but the driver ran over him instead of stopping. The sub-divisional police officer of Bamor, Morena was rushed to a nearby hospital but succumbed to his injuries on the way, they added.

The driver of the tractor, Manoj Gujjar, has been taken into custody.

State Home Minister Umashankar Gupta has confirmed the incident and said that action will be taken against the guilty. Gupta and the State's Director General of Police (DGP) Nandan Dube have rushed to Gwalior following the incident.

Kumar was posted at Banmore for probation since last one month and during his brief tenure he had taken on the mining mafia head-on by seizing number of trucks and tractors engaged in illegal mining in the area, the sources said.

Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Ajay Singh, alleged the manner in which the IPS officer was killed indicated how bad the law and order situation was. "One can imagine the law and order situation in a state where people are so emboldened that they can think of killing an IPS officer," he said in a statement in Morena.

Congress had since long speaking about illegal mining in the state but the BJP government had not done anything to control it, he alleged.

The 30-year-old IPS was a 2009-batch officer and his wife, Madhurani Tewatia was also posted in Madhya Pradesh as an IAS officer but she is currently on maternity leave.