Mumbai: Cannot kill Mahul mangroves, offenders learn the hard way

The forest and police officers that made the arrests at Mahul

Sending out a stern message to those trying to destroy mangroves in the city, the forest department has seized five trucks for allegedly trying to dump debris at Mahul and arrested four people in the past three days.

The Mangrove Cell of the department has registered a case under the Environment Protection Act, 1927 for damaging the reserved mangrove forest near the fishing village by dumping waste.

The Cell nabbed Rani Mani Arjun and Shafikullah Chaudhari on Wednesday. While a court remanded Chaudhari in forest department's custody for two days, a dumper used by Rani Mani Arjun was seized. The next day, three more people landed in the department's net. Officials said they took the help of Wadala police in arresting the offenders.

The dumpers that were seized

Range Forest Officer Suresh Varak from the Cell confirmed the arrests and seizure. He said, "In the coming days, there might be more arrests and more vehicles can be seized too."

According to the law, a person responsible for killing mangroves can be jailed between three months and three years with fines up to Rs 10,000.

Activists have been complaining about destruction of ecologically important mangroves on public and private land in and around Mumbai.

Sources said the latest action was spurred by a directive from Virendra Tiwari, additional principal chief conservator of Mangrove Cell, to go tough on killers of the coastal plants. They said Deputy Conservator of Forest Neenu Somraj from the Cell and team led the crackdown in the past three days.

On Friday morning, Somraj shared similar action elsewhere. She tweeted, "Another vehicle seized from Dive Anjur, Thane and prevented an attempt to dump on mangroves. Compliments to Ms Chetana Shinde and her team."

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Jail term in years for killing mangroves