New Delhi, April 18 -- The Supreme Court on Friday ordered heightened vigil, stringent prosecution, and strict accountability of officers as part of a slew of steps to prevent illegal sand mining in the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary districts spread across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. In a judgment passed in a suo motu proceeding, the court said that the "lackadaisical response" of the states coupled with their utter failure to prevent such brazen illegal acts cannot be tolerated any further. Directing states to come out with concrete steps and a coordinated approach to tackle this menace, the court threatened extraordinary measures including deployment of paramilitary forces and a complete ban on sand mining in the three states, if the situation is not effectively remedied. A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said, "The utter failure of the state governments in discharging this duty is writ large on the face of record.The circumstances, taken as a whole, may even warrant an inference of tacit connivance. The material placed before us discloses a disturbing pattern of inaction and administrative indifference." The court ordered the installation of high-resolution, Wi-Fi-enabled CCTVs across strategic locations in the sanctuary along routes frequented by the mining mafia and vulnerable stretches of the Chambal river. The directions further required the three state governments to set up specialised patrolling teams on a continuous and round-the-clock basis, equipped with modern arms, communication gadgets particularly in vulnerable and high-risk areas, to face the might of the illegal miners having sophisticated weapons.P4...