Una police to seize ill-gotten properties of mining mafia : The Tribune India

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Una police to seize ill-gotten properties of mining mafia

Illegal mining goes on at Kalonha village in Kangra district.

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, August 17

The Una police have started an initiative to ascertain the ill-gotten properties of the mining mafia active in the district so that these could be seized.

Sources said that the police had started financial investigation into illegal mining cases to ascertain ill-gotten wealth. SP, Una, Arjit Sen told The Tribune that financial investigation had been started in five cases of illegal mining. “We are trying to ascertain moveable and immoveable assets generated by people involved in illegal mining. We are trying to link their illegally amassed assets with mining operations being carried out by them. After that we shall refer such cases to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for further action,” he added.

The SP said that the Una police had carried out forward investigation into some illegal mining cases and found that the material mined was usually transported to Ludhiana city. In Ludhiana, some people had created a dump yard for selling material mined illegally from various places in the region. “Anybody can come and purchase material at such dump yards. No bills are issued and the GST is not paid on such illegally-mined material,” he added.

Sen said that after financial investigation, the police could confiscate the properties of some people involved in illegal mining. Till date, the properties of those convicted under the NDPS Act had been confiscated but similar action would also be taken in illegal mining cases as well, he added.

The Una police have registered 400 cases of illegal mining in 2021 and 380 cases of these have been compounded and a fine of Rs 36.72 lakh had been realised. The remaining 20 cases had been sent to court.

After the police and other state departments acted tough on illegal mining, the stone crusher owners proceeded on strike. However, they ended the strike after the government assured them that their demands would be considered.