Chief Minister Kamal Nath has said that he wants Madhya Pradesh to be a ‘mafia-free’ state and that the police have been given a free hand to take the necessary action.



Speaking to the media on Thursday, Kamal Nath said that he has given directives to the police to take strict action necessary to control and contain mafia activity in the state, especially in the bigger cities.



“We have our eyes on this issue. The society is quite unhappy about the influence of mafia and people have reported to us about their activities from different cities. Our target is to rid the society of mafia,” the chief minister said.



A high-level meeting was scheduled for later on Thursday to decide ways to control the different kinds of mafia, such as the land mafia, sand and mining mafia, those involved in human trafficking, prostitution, adulteration, blackmailing, extortion and others. The meeting is to be attended by the home minister, chief secretary, director general of police, additional director generals of intelligence and SIT (special investigative teams) and senior administrative and police officials of Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur.



Recently, the government came down heavily upon the alleged illegal businesses of Indore-based Jitu Soni, who also ran an evening newspaper. Raids were conducted on his establishments and alleged illegal dance bars and prostitution rackets were bust. Illegal constructions, including the building that housed the evening newspaper, were razed.

As the action on Soni’s businesses was looked upon as retribution for his paper's coverage of stories like the honey trap scandal that involved numerous prominent people, the state government and chief minister emphasised that this was just the first in a string of mafia active in the state. Later, action was also taken on Sahara Hospital in Gwalior that was reportedly constructed illegally.

Late on Wednesday night, a group of people alleged to be part of the stone mafia (those engaged in illegal stone quarrying) attacked a forest department team in Karera of Shivpuri district. Deputy ranger Mohan Swarup Gupta and another forest employee Neeraj Rajoria were injured after being attacked by a group of people with sharp weapons and stones. The attack came after the forest team tried to stop a tractor allegedly ferrying illegal stone in Khod Chowki area, sources said.

Sources said that the government has decided to monitor the action on mafia at a high level from Bhopal.