Sand mafia jolted, big bust near Bhiwapur

Nagpur: The Bhiwapur police and local crime branch team of Nagpur Rural struck a major blow to the sand mafia by intercepting a sand-laden tipper and arresting three persons. The action on Thursday night led to seizure of valuables worth Rs61 lakh.Under SP Rural Harssh A Poddar, rural police initiated a crackdown on the racket, which is believed to be causing huge revenue loss to the state by illegally extracting and transporting sand from riverbeds across Vidarbha. Investigators found the racket operated a fleet of sand trucks using fake royalty documents, leading to revenue losses to the tune of crores of rupees. The gang shared real-time movements of police and revenue department teams on WhatsApp groups, allowing them to evade checkpoints.On Thursday, police had received a tip-off that a 12-wheeler tipper was illegally transporting sand from the Pauni area, guided by a car. The vehicles approaching from Bhiwapur Road were stopped at a blockade set up near Kargaon Railway in Bhiwapur.The tipper was found loaded with nine brass of sand. The tipper driver, Kaiser Ali, produced documents that turned out to be fake. Vehicle owner, Aziz Sheikh, from Kharbi, allegedly admitted to running the illegal sand transportation racket. Car driver Mohd Inazul alias Kallu Khan was nabbed on the spot. He has two cases of attempt to murder — one registered in Nagpur and another in Pauni, Bhandara district. The rural team under Addl SP Anil Mhaske is now probing links of accused with other sand mafia syndicates that allegedly use muscle power, political patronage to dominate illegal mining. A case has been registered by Bhiwapur police. The accused were remanded to PCR till April 28.