India, May 26 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Madhya Pradesh government's response over unabated illegal mining at the Chambal Wildlife Sanctuary in Morena, despite its directions, taking cognisance of an HT spot check on large craters on the Chambal banks, leaving indentations where once natural sand would have accumulated through the river flow

The spot check found that the natural habitat of the animals outside the manicured 3.5-acre park, 15km away, which should have been undisturbed floodplains consisting of sand from the river, looked ravaged. The riverbank, once the nesting site for the critically endangered gharials and accounting for nearly 80-90% of the entire global wild gharial population, is degraded, with deep pi...