City Police unearths illegally excavated sand worth Rs 7 crore

Nagpur: Police have detected illegally excavated sand worth about Rs 7 crore in the presence of revenue departments. In the last about two months, sand has been excavated from eight ghats of district Nagpur and has been dumped at nearby places.

The police department has sent a letter to the concerned tehsildars pointing out the amount of sand and the damage caused to the government exchequer.

The crime branch has found piles of sand after questioning about six accused in the electronic transit pass scam located in Madhya Pradesh. So far, the Crime Branch has traced around 70 irregular transit passes from the racketers.

Illegal transit passes were issued for vehicles of sand excavation and moving to different places in Madhya Pradesh. But they were mining illegally from district Nagpur and also dumping it at different places to get trade tax at very low prices.

Crime Branch had arrested Rahul Khanna

According to a key source in the investigation, the racketers had made at least 350-400 rounds of illegal transit passes within Maharashtra, Due to which there has been a very serious environmental degradation on the river ghats and the state exchequer has also suffered a lot.

City Police Chief (CP) Amitesh Kumar, who is supervising the investigation, has said that six accused have been arrested, but some are in the pipeline.

The City Police Chief has said that the police will also check the GPS location of the vehicles of the miscreants and also trace the activities of those miscreants.

Even before this, the Crime Branch had arrested Rahul Khanna of Madhya Pradesh. Which used to issue irregular transit passes.

In 2021, the city police had registered about 78 cases against the sand mafia. Some such old cases are still being linked to the current scam of illegal transit passes.

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