Panaji (Goa): One of the biggest ore miner and exporter in the State Haresh Melwani skipped police summons in the illegal mining probe and moved the local court seeking anticipatory bail. The lease holder of H L Nathurmal & Co was summoned to appear before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) at 11am today.

“He chose not to cooperate with the investigation and applied for anticipatory bail. The District & Sessions Court has issued notice to the SIT to file a reply by June 12,” an official said.

The SIT is investigating the mining scam comprising of 183 mining leases. A total of eight directors of eight different mining companies were last Saturday issued summons to appear on specified dates. The Directors of Sociede De Fomento Industries Pvt Ltd and Damodar Mangalji & Co Ltd appeared for questioning on May 30 and 31 respectively, whereas the director of G N Agarwal Mining Pvt Ltd is issued fresh summons to appear on June 9. The Agarwal Co sent its representative Avinash Julka for the recording of the statement but SIT refused and handed him fresh summons for its owner Krishna Kumar Agrawal.

The case, which is one of 13 cases investigated by SIT, also saw former chief minister Digambar Kamat appearing for questioning in April. He however skipped second summons and applied for anticipatory bail, hearing of which is pending before the same court.

Kamat – the longest serving mines minister for 12 years is virtually being probed in all the cases including the tenure when he was the CM of Goa from 2007-2011.

Team TNV