Withdraw cases against anti-mining activists: Goa Church

October 18, 2012: The Catholic Church in Goa has asked the state government to withdraw all the criminal cases filed against anti-illegal mining activists. The Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP), the social wing of the church, said that the activists’ stand against the excesses and illegalities in mining is vindicated after the tabling o the Justice M B Shah commission report.

The report says that Goa's iron ore mining scam is worth nearly 35,000 crore rupees. It holds the state government and federal government agencies as parties to the scam along with powerful mining operators in the state.

According to Justice Shah, these parties plundered natural resource and facilitated an "unrestricted, unchecked and unregulated export of iron ore to China," which made the exporters of ore "richer and richer". In view of the report, the Supreme Court recently halted transportation and extraction of iron ore in the state, pending report from a probe by a centrally empowered committee.

The CSJP also expressed its concern about the people who are dependent on mining and under the threat of losing everything due to the current crisis impending over the trade.