Trichy police arrest six for mining sand from Cauvery bed

TRICHY: Trichy city police arrested six people out of the eight booked for indulging in illegal sand mining in Thiruverumbur, Kollidam and Kattuputhur areas in Trichy.

The Thiruverumbur police arrested C Manuneethi, 33, K Ilaiyaraja, 40, and S Manohar, 48, in separate incidents when they were riding bullock carts loaded with a quarter unit of river sand on Friday.

The Thiruverumbur police also arrested C Subramanian, 55, G Gajendran, 52, and R Karthick, 42 during a patrol near in Kotrapatti, Villankulam and Arasankudi areas on Friday and seized one bullock cart each with quarter unit of river sand from them.

Police said on Saturday that the arrested people claimed that they were transporting the sand from a point where they had stored it after mining from the river when the permission was given earlier.

However, investigation revealed that they had mined the sand from the Cauvery riverbed.

All of them were arrested under sections of the Mines and Minerals (development and regulation) Act 1957. They were remanded in judicial custody.

The Kollidam police also booked a case of illegal sand mining against an unknown person under the MM Act on Friday.

Police said that the person who was riding the bullock cart loaded with a quarter unit of river sand escaped after seeing the police.

The Kattuputhur police booked P Dharmaraj, 21, for illegally carrying river sand in his bullock cart near the Cauvery river in Kaduvetti on Friday. Dharmaraj is absconding.