The High Court-appointed Legal Commissioner, U. Sagayam, has appointed a retired police official to deal with all registered and “hushed up” criminal cases related to illegal granite mining in Madurai district.
N.K. Velu, who retired as Additional Superintendent of Police, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, from Coimbatore in 1997, has joined the Commission to assist Mr. Sagayam in dealing with the criminal cases.
His role will be to go through all the criminal incidents pertaining to granite cases like encroachment of land, land grab, unnatural deaths and other tacit criminal aspects.
“The Commission has received over 600 petitions on encroachment, land grab, forced evacuation of people from the house and farm lands, damage to government infrastructure, among others. In some cases, people have complained that they were threatened against revealing certain facts. Some of the cases were hushed up,” an official said.
Over 20 granite-related cases have been registered by the district police in the last one week based on the petitions received by the High Court-appointed Commission.
Mr. Velu had served as Deputy Superintendent of Police in Melur Sub-Division in the district, where most of the granite quarries of Madurai district are located. However, Mr. Velu had served here long before granite quarrying started in the district.
Flutter by AIADMK man
Meanwhile, a former district secretary of the AIADMK, Machchakumar, created a flutter at the office of the Legal Commissioner on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Machchakumar managed to walk into the office after brushing past police personnel . However, two other police personnel outside the chamber of Mr. Sagayam stopped him.
Mr. Machchakumar said that he wanted to meet Mr. Sagayam to discuss the plight of agriculture in Melur area following the illegal granite mining. He left as he was not allowed to meet the Legal Commissioner.
Police security to Mr. Sagayam and his office has been beefed up with armed guards since Thursday following threats..
The police officer will go through all the criminal incidents pertaining to granite cases