Illegal sand mining: 3 cases registered, one arrested

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 23

The Amritsar rural police have arrested one person and booked five others for illegal excavation of sand from the Ravi river belt in Ajnala in separate instances during the past 24 hours here. The police seized two trucks, four tractor-trailers and recovered 19 cubic-feet sand from three spots.

The arrested accused was identified as Kuldeep Singh of Khanwal village while those booked were Sarabjit Singh of Jagdev Khurd village, Sukhdev Singh of Kotli Koretana, Inderjit Singh of Jhandawala village, Balwant Singh, a former sarpanch of Talwandi Rai Dadu village, and an unidentified person.

Three separate cases under Section 379, IPC , and 21 (1) of the Mining Act were registered against them.

Kuldeep was arrested following a tip-off that he along with Sarabjit Singh and an unidentified person were involved in illegal sand mining and that they were ferrying it from the Sarangdev village side. A police team intercepted them near Ugar Aulakh village. While Kuldeep was nabbed, the remaining two managed to flee, leaving two tractor-trailers, a truck and nine cubic feet sand at the spot.

Another police team intercepted Sukhdev Singh and Inderjit near Rokhe village. However, they fled, leaving their two tractor-trailers behind.