Anti-mafia drive led to hundreds of arrests: Madhya Pradesh Minister

The Madhya Pradesh government's anti-mafia drive was showing results and hundreds of arrests had been made in several sectors over the past six months, state public relations minister PC Sharma said on Friday. He said action was concentrated on 11 sectors in which the mafia had made inroads, and added that the drive will be taken up in smaller towns once clean-up work in the major cities is completed.

He said action was being taken against mafia connected with drugs, adulteration, blackmail, extortion, encroachment, as well as those involved in sectors like land, chit fund, mining transport and housing cooperatives.

"We took action against 615 mafia elements in the real estate sector, 694 in liquor, 150 in adulteration, 149 in extortion, 65 in housing cooperative sector. During the drive against illegal mining, 1330 cases were registered, in addition to 8294 for illegal transportation of minerals and 531 for illegal storage," Sharma said.

He said, post this action, the state government will receive over Rs 1200 crore in mining revenue against the Rs 223 crore collected under the previous BJP regime. "We arrested over 4,200 drug traffickers and seized 12.11 kilograms of smack, 172 kilograms of poppy and over 10,000 kgs of ganja apart from other narcotics during the drive," he added.

He said 108 police cases were registered in connection with food adulteration, and 41 traders were arrested under the stringent National Security Act for the crime. The liquor mafia grew unchecked during the previous BJP regime but the Kamal Nath government had arrested 694 persons during its anti-mafia drive, while 67 women were freed from an illegal dance bar being run in Indore under the garb of a media organisation, Sharma claimed. Sharma refuted BJP allegations that the anti-mafia drive was an excuse to target the saffron party's workers.

(image from PTI)