Bhopal, September 7: A 60-year-old forest officer was crushed to death when he tried to stop a tractor filled with illegally mined sand in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district on Friday morning. The murder case has been registered by the police. Deputy ranger Subedar Singh Kushwaha was a resident of Bhind district. He was on duty at the forest department post near Ghirona temple in Morena at the time of the incident.

Kushwaha was about to retire on June this year but was given two-year extension under the new retirement policy introduced by Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The forest guards took him to the hospital where doctor declared him brought dead. The manhunt operation is launched to nab the driver of the tractor. Morena Superintendent of Police (SP) Amit Sanghi told The Times of India, “Two people on a motorcycle were trying to remove tyre bursting spikes that were kept on the road by forest officials to stop tractors and trucks ferrying illegal sand. When Kushwah tried to stop them, he was hit by the speeding tractor from behind.”

This is not the first time that a government official has been crushed by the sand mafia in the state. In March 2012, Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Narendra Kumar was crushed to death by a tractor-trolley carrying illegally mined stone in Banmore in Morena district when he tried to stop it. Three constables Atwal Singh Chouhan, Dharmendra Chouhan and Narendra Sharma also lost their lives while stopping illegal mining of sand by the mafia.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 07, 2018 03:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).