Joda: Despite repeated crackdowns on mineral mafia by forest, police and mines officials, illegal mining and mineral transportation has not been stopped till date.
There are several instances of seizures of minerals during transits at various parts of Keonjhar in the last two months.
In most cases, police and forest facials catching such illegal activities these days while the mines department fails to get an inklings of the illegal mineral transportation.
Police seized huge quantities of iron ore loaded in five trucks at Jagdala under Bamebari police limits and another truck at Jurudi Tuesday. Six people were arrested in this connection.
According to Bamabari IIC Rajendra Swain, police were conducting night patrolling Monday. They first intercepted five trucks. On checking, they came to know that the vehicles were loaded with illegally extracted iron fines.
Later, they came to know that another truck was carrying iron fines from Jurudi area. They arrested six people most of them were outsiders.
The arrested were identified as Jogendra Yadav, Kalu Ram Yadav and Samaya Din of Rajasthan, Md Abad of Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Yadav of Bihar and Ramprasad Yadav of Chhattisgarh.
Police registered two cases against them. A few weeks ago, the officials of the mines department seized 30 tonnes of illegally extracted iron ore at Antaramantara Chak under Bamebari police limits of Joda mining circle.
Earlier, a heavy vehicle carrying huge quantities of illegally mined manganese from Nayagad forest was seized by forest officials from Champua, Joda, Balibandh and Bamebari while conducting night patrolling in January 12 night in a forest under Champua range.
Notably, Barbil police busted a major racket pushing illegal smuggling of iron billets and arrested four people from Jharkhand Tuesday.
The racket was carrying out this illegal act by using forged number plates and documents. Police seized four trucks in Bari area of Jharkhand.
The accused were identified as Pankaj Tiwari of Baril Atation area, two middlemen Arbinda Singh of Balia in UP, Arbind Tiwari of Siman in Bihar and Suraj Yadav of Bokarao in Jharkhand.
They were transporting about 64 tonnes of iron billets, valued at Rs 30 lakh, to Patna in Bihar. By March 22, the vehicles had not reached their destination.
Radhakrishna Transports, a transport agency, was responsible for this transportation. It had filed a complaint at Barbil police station about missing of the vehicles on the way.
Police investigated the matter and came to know that the four had stuck a deal with Gandhi Steel Plant at Giridihi in Jharkhand to sell the billets for Rs 18 lakh.
The accused had even received Rs 5 lakh as advance from the plant. Barbil IIC Sushant Kumar Das said that the accused were transporting iron billets by using forged number plates and transit documents.
PNN
