24 loaded vehicles seized in crackdown on mining mafia

In a crackdown on the mining mafia, the Nurpur district police conducted surprise checking of the movement of loaded transport vehicles on some identified locations in the border areas under Indora and Damtal police jurisdictions last night and seized 24 heavy vehicles loaded with finished mining materials.

As per the information available, the seized vehicles belonged to some stone crusher units and were transporting finished products outside the state without legal documents.

The district police had conducted this crackdown following some intelligence inputs and the operation started at 10 pm last night and ended at 3 am today.

The district police had constituted special teams and resorted to night patrolling at Dhangu-Mazra, Bhadroya, Tanda-Mor and Bharota in Indora and Damtal police station jurisdictions.

The seizure of a large number of vehicles loaded with finished minerals has unearthed the evasion of huge amounts of royalty to the state exchequer. The mining mafia used to transport finished material in the night to evade paying royalty to the state exchequer.

SP Nurpur Ashok Ratan told The Tribune that these heavy vehicles loaded with finished minerals of some local stone crushers were being transported outside the state without legal documents. He said around 15 out of total 24 vehicles were without X-forms, mandatory for transporting minerals, while the remaining vehicles were also lacking legal validity for transporting finished minerals.

He said that during the night crackdown, 24 transport vehicles had been seized, compounded and referred to the local judicial court for further legal action.

The SP said that the district police had registered eight FIRs against the mining mafia from January to June 12 this year. As many as 364 challans for illegal mining were issued and Rs 27 lakh was recovered from the offenders for indulging in illegal mining activities. So far, 42 transport vehicles have been seized by the police, he added.