The an­cient ar­chae­o­log­i­cal won­der of the Be­fore Christ pe­riod of the Tamil Sangam king­doms -Pi­ran­malai in the Siva­gan­gai dis­trict of pre­sent-day Tamil Nadu is in peril as the sand min­ing nexus of the mafia-gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and lead­ers is play­ing havoc with the ecol­ogy and en­vi­ron­ment with­out a let-up. Naam Tami­lar Katchi party has taken on the man­tle to save the zone and has strongly protested the on­go­ing sand min­ing. NTK has also de­cided to take le­gal ac­tion against trans­porters, ad­min­is­tra­tors and all those in­volved in this il­le­gal racket.

LIKE IN PUN­JAB AND HARYANA, EVEN IN TAMIL NADU, the peo­ple of the states are un­able to stop the men­ace of il­le­gal sand-min­ing and fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of sand min­ing reg­u­la­tions. De­spite protests by po­lit­i­cal par­ties, civil rights ac­tivists and en­vi­ron­ment zealots, the Tamil Nadu ad­min­is­tra­tion and its po­lit­i­cal lead­ers could­n’t care less.

From sav­ing plant life to an­i­mal life, the Naam Tami­lar Katchi par­ty’s en­vi­ron­men­tal wing has been at the fore­front of protest­ing all un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ties en­dan­ger­ing the en­vi­ron­ment.

NTK State co­or­di­na­tor En­gi­neeer Vetri Ku­maran, who or­gan­ised a mas­sive protest out­side the Col­lec­tor’s of­fice at Siva­gan­gai to protest the il­le­gal sand min­ing around the an­cient tem­ple sites of Pi­ran­malai told The World Sikh News, “Pri­vate mafia groups ow­ing al­le­giance to the rul­ing AIADMK -All In­dia Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party are in­dulging in large-scale il­le­gal sand-min­ing even though the Madu­rai bench of the Madras High Court has or­dered a blan­ket ban on river sand min­ing in Tamil Nadu.”

Cor­rupt tehsil­dars al­low lim­it­less min­ing and it would be naive to ex­pect any ac­tion from them. They are part­ners in the crime. Vetri Ku­maran told WSN, “It is an open se­cret in this dis­trict that Hand­looms and Text­tiles De­part­ment min­is­ter G Baskaran from Siva­gan­gai and the AIADMK Siva­gan­gai dis­trict sec­re­tary are pa­trons of these il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

“Pri­vate mafia groups ow­ing al­le­giance to the rul­ing AIADMK -All In­dia Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party are in­dulging in large-scale il­le­gal sand-min­ing even though the Madu­rai bench of the Madras High Court has or­dered a blan­ket ban on river sand min­ing in Tamil Nadu.”

Vetri ku­maran, NTK State Co­or­di­na­tor

Speak­ing at the protest Vetri Ku­maran said, “NTK ac­tivists have been threat­ened and beaten by goons of the il­le­gal sand min­ers but we are not go­ing to budge and con­tinue our protests. NTK will not tol­er­ate il­le­gal sand min­ing any­more. We are al­ready con­tem­plat­ing le­gal ac­tion seek­ing dis­missal of cor­rupt and erring of­fi­cials. We have cau­tioned lorry dri­vers too.”

Like in many other states, the pow­er­ful sand mafia does not care for the High Court. With sup­port from the Tehsil­dar -rev­enue of­fi­cial at the dis­trict level and the of­fi­cials of the Min­er­als de­part­ment, all norms of sand-min­ing are be­ing flouted.

The nexus is com­pleted with the truck own­ers not fol­low­ing Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment guide­lines and be­ing com­plicit with the il­le­gal sand min­ers in trans­port­ing sand, most of the times in the mid­dle of the night and many times brazenly even dur­ing the day.

“Pran­mi­lai is our her­itage ar­chae­o­log­i­cal lo­ca­tion since Tamil Sangam times. In the name of “progress” sand-min­ing and other forms of min­ing have al­ready ru­ined the place. I urge the gov­ern­ment to pro­tect and safe­guard this his­toric place.”

See­man, Chief co­or­di­na­tor, Naam Tami­lar Katchi

Draw­ing a par­al­lel be­tween how gov­ern­ments are in league with law­break­ers and big busi­ness, NTK party ide­o­logue Jeeva Dawn­ing told WSN, “Just as the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab is hand­ing over the Mat­te­wara forests to big busi­ness houses by de­struc­t­ing the green cover of Pun­jab, sim­i­larly the gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu is hell-bent on de­stroy­ing Pi­ran­malai. We have to fight this tooth and nail.”

“The Naam Tami­lar Party is de­ter­mined to pro­tect the en­vi­rons of the state and we will con­tinue our de­mo­c­ra­tic protests against il­le­gal sand-min­ing,” he added.

En­vi­ron­men­tal­ists have stated time and again that lim­it­less sand-min­ing is a di­rect threat to the ecol­ogy of the state, but this has fallen on deaf ears. Sadly, even the on­set of the coro­n­avirus COVID-19 pan­demic has also not de­terred the per­pe­tra­tors from com­mit­ting this crime against the en­vi­ron­ment.

“Just as the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab is hand­ing over the Mat­te­wara forests to big busi­ness houses by de­struc­t­ing the green cover of Pun­jab, sim­i­larly the gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu is hell-bent on de­stroy­ing Pi­ran­malai. We have to fight this tooth and nail.”

Dawn­ing Jeeva, NTK ide­o­logue

At the time of the fil­ing of this story, it is learnt that the Siva­gan­gai city has filed a case of vi­o­la­tion of pub­lic peace against NTK State co­or­di­na­tor Vetri Ku­maran and dis­trict co­or­di­na­tor Siva­gan­gai dis­trict Sayal Ram and 50 other cadres of NTK.

Pro-Tamil Naam Tami­lar Katchi Chief co­or­di­na­tor See­man was forth­right in his com­ments while talk­ing to The World Sikh News, “Like skin is for the body, so are rivers and sands for mother earth. We can­not stay silent while mother earth is be­ing de­stroyed in front of our own eyes.”

“Pran­mi­lai is our her­itage ar­chae­o­log­i­cal lo­ca­tion since Tamil Sangam times. In the name of “progress” sand-min­ing and other forms of min­ing have al­ready ru­ined the place. I urge the gov­ern­ment to pro­tect and safe­guard this his­toric place,” he added.

Pran­malai is gasp­ing for breath. Let us all join hands to lib­er­ate it.