![Common Man]() | Subject: Chronicle of a Murder foretold The Dinesh Solanki-Amit Jethava story is about the mentor and the student turning on each other in the wake of an inevitable clash of ambitions. The lucrative limestone-mining business of Gujarat — conservatively estimated at Rs 500 crore annually — provides the backdrop for not just Jethava's murder but a general sordid politician-bureaucrat-businessman nexus in the state.
Jethava hailed from Khambha town, part of the command area of Solanki's transportation and limestone mining business. When his childhood friend Boga Dhakan started the Gir Nature Youth Club, the first local environment group in the area, Jethava, a compounder suspended from the local Community Health Centre, was quick to sign up. That was just under five years ago.The club soon found donors among industrialists and politicians in the area, and Jethava became close to Solanki, then a BJP MLA.
The relationship broke during the 2007 Assembly election. Jethava contested against Solanki at the Khambha-Kodinar seat, which that latter had already won thrice. As Solanki romped home for the fourth time, the enmity between the men only deepened.
In 2009, Solanki became an MP, and the Congress's Dhirsinh Barad won the Assembly seat. Suddenly, Jethava had an ally — and Barad a friend against the common enemy, Solanki. Ever since the Assembly election battle, Jethava had been doing his best to disrupt Solanki's businesses, unleashing against the politician a volley of petitions and RTI applications. Now, he redoubled his efforts.
Complaints against Solanki
According to officials at the Khambha police station, Jethava had filed at least 21 complaints with them — five of which were against Solanki. All were about alleged violations of environment laws in the Gir Sanctuary.
Jethava successfully petitioned the court that a community hall being built by Solanki's Rajmoti Charitable Trust was using Central and state government grants and was, hence, public property.
Jethava was successful in digging out information through the RTI Act that proved that mobile phone towers in Kodinar — a business in which Solanki's nephew Shiva had an interest — had been erected illegally.
He used the RTI Act to show that even though a criminal case of rioting and assault was pending against Solanki, the MP was being allowed to fly to the US.
Another complaint related to a mining lease given to Solanki by the Junagadh Collectorate in Pichvi village. According to the Forest Department, Pichvi is one of six villages in Kodinar that fall within the prohibited 5-km radius of the Gir Sanctuary.
In a complaint filed on August 25, 2008, Jethava expressed fears that Solanki might bring try to bring false charges against him.
Two months ago, Jethava filed an RTI application with the Gujarat Forest Department, seeking details of illegal mining on the periphery of the Gir Sanctuary. This month, he filed a public interest suit against illegal mining in the Gujarat High Court, which declared Solanki a respondent in the case.
He also filed affidavits with the Supreme Court-constituted Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on illegal mining around the Gir National Park and Sanctuary. The matter is still pending with the CEC.
The mining trail
The truth about Jethava's murder lies shrouded in the complex and murky workings of Gujarat's mining nexus. The state in which India's fourth largest limestone deposits are located, had done little to curb illegal mining until 2002 — the year in which the Forest Department was given powers to restrict mining within the Sanctuary area, and up to a radius of 5 km around its perimeter. "Before 2002, mining activity continued around the forest area as there was no law to prevent it," said a senior Forest Department official.
The deposits in the Porbander, Kutch and Junagadh districts — and the smaller ones in Rajkot, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha — feed huge cement plants with annual production capacities of millions of tonnes. Among the big business houses that tap into the limestone are Ambuja Cements, Siddhi Cement and Hathi Cements in Veraval in Porbander district, and Sanghi Cement, J P Cements and Sparta Cement in Kutch. A cement manufacturing plant is reported to be in the pipeline in Kutch district. Some of the country's biggest soda-ash manufacturing units too are located in the limestone-producing areas of Gujarat.
The nature of the limestone quarrying business — windfall returns on minimal investment — attracted huge interest, and also spawned massive irregularities.
Jethava's PIL against illegal mining in the Supreme Court, and those in the Gujarat High Court against Director of Environment J K Vyas's promotion, have the potential to upset the workings of the mining mafia and the vested interests in the cement and soda ash industries.
According to official sources, 20 million to 22 million tonnes of limestone worth over Rs 500 crore is mined across the state annually, leading to the manufacture of nearly 15 million tonnes of cement. However, the state government has been getting royalty in the range of only about Rs 22 crore every year, with allegations that the bulk of it is siphoned off by the illegal mining mafia.
The other players
In the last five months, the state Mining and Geology department has cracked down on many Porbander-based mining companies that have allegedly underreported the quantity of limestone being quarried by them. The state government has even initiated a move to attach their landed properties.
These companies include those allegedly owned by former BJP minister Babu Bokhiria and Bima Odedara, the brother of BJP MLA Karsan Dula.
According to officials, a total of 135 companies are engaged in limestone mining in Porbander district, which has the largest of the limestone mines in the state. Sources in the Geology Commissionerate alleged that nearly 80 per cent these companies are controlled by Babu Bokhiria.
Bokhiria was accused of the murder of Congress activist and miner Molu Modhwadia in October 2005.
Molu's wife Laki had been demanding that an FIR be lodged against Bokhiria on the basis of a note recovered from Molu's wallet after his death. Molu had expressed the fear that Bokhiria was conspiring to eliminate him, and should be held responsible in case he (Molu) was killed.
While a forensic examination of the letter established the handwriting to be Molu's, the police have neither made Bokhiria an accused nor questioned him in the case. Bokhiria later challenged in the High Court a fast track court's judgment ordering his interrogation. After the High Court upheld the fast track court's order in 2008, Bokhiria challenged the matter in the Supreme Court, where it is now pending.
Bokhiria had earlier been arrested in an illegal mining case involving the non-payment of royalty of nearly Rs 54 crore in October 2007. The case was filed by Saurashtra Chemicals in 2006 (when Bokhiria was Porbander MLA) against Bokhiria, Bhima Odedara, his son Laxman and former Congress MP Bharat Odedara, who is now in the BJP. Bokhiria was released in March 2008, after he had spent five months in jail.
Another major defaulter, Bima Dula Odedara, is the brother of Karsan Dula, BJP MLA from Kotiyana. Karsan who has 36 criminal cases against him, happens to be Bokhiria's brother-in-law.
While five defaulters, whose penalty amount ranged between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, paid the penalties, the rest approached the Union Mining Ministry which is yet to decide on their appeal. |
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