Panaji, May 2 (IANS) One person has been arrested here for illegal mining at a site acquired by the government for building a stadium for the National Games 2014 and the Portuguese Commonwealth Games 2013.
The Portuguese Games is a multinational sporting event similar to the Commonwealth Games. It involves Portuguese-speaking nations.
A police official said Girish Sawant, 38, was remanded to two days in police custody for running the mining site, from which over the last few months he extracted several tonnes of laterite stone used for building homes.
“He was picked up after a complaint by the mining department. The illegal mining was in government acquired land,” a police spokesperson said.
Three power tillers, heavy mining equipment and 10 trucks have also been seized.
The illegal mining was being carried out in north Goa’s Pernem taluka, around 30 km for here.
In 2009, the government had acquired nearly 10,00,000 sq meters of land in the area to develop infrastructure for national and international sporting events.
Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar has initiated an enquiry into the incident.
