Durga Nagpal walked into a trap laid by sand mafia

So far, so good. But how did Nagpal turn upon the mosque in Kadalpur village which is what the controversy is all about and which has caused Akhilesh Yadav's government to suspend her? What did the mosque have to do with the sand mafia?



Scores of trucks loaded with illegally mined sand, confiscated by the SDM, had to be auctioned. The highest bid on one such occasion was for Rs.8 crores. It turned out that the bidder, obviously a “dummy” set up by Bhati, disappeared without depositing the amount he had bid for. At the last minute, someone raised his hand and bid for one crore. Nagpal smelt a rat. There was a clear “fix” between the two bidders. She canceled the auction and invited new bids. Tired of this endless cat and mouse, the mafia thought of a deep plot.

Akhilesh Yadav cannot punish an upright officer, implementing the law in a way that pulverizes the sand mafia. We (said the Mafia) cant catch her on that score. But in her campaign against mining, she has exposed a chink in her armour: she has come to loath Bhati. She will see red if Bhati provokes her.

The plot took this into account. Bhati would donate, say, Rs.51,000 towards the construction of a mosque in Kadalpur village. This would serve two purposes. For the 2014 election, he would have the support of not only 75 percent Muslim population in Kadalpur but also in the other eight villages in the vicinity.

If the news of his help to the Kadalpur mosque is communicated to Nagpal, spiced with the mirch masala that it was being constructed illegally on government land, she would come galloping on a charger, all guns blazing. And if the gods were kind to Bhati, she might in her temper even be tempted to demolish the mosque.