ACB arrests cops for accepting bribe by soil mafia

MUMBAI: ACB arrested two Palghar policemen for demanding a ₹1 lakh bribe from truck drivers transporting sand on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway.

MUMBAI: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday arrested two policemen from the Palghar District Magistrate’s flying squad who allegedly stopped truck drivers transporting sand and soil and demanded a bribe of ₹1 lakh from them. A middleman, who paid the bribe, was also arrested.

ACB arrests cops for accepting bribe by soil mafia

According to the ACB officers, large quantities of sand, gravel, and soil are illegally transported on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway by evading the authorities. To combat this, the Palghar District Magistrate formed a flying squad in 2022 that patrols the highway and acts against illegal transporters by confiscating their vehicles and imposing fines.

The complainant, a stone transporter, owns two trucks. Both his vehicles were travelling on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway on Monday when the flying squad stopped them, said an ACB official. The police told the drivers that as royalty was not paid for the goods they were transporting, both vehicles would be seized. As an alternative, the police demanded the drivers could pay a bribe of ₹50,000 for each vehicle.

As the complainant did not want to pay the bribe, he alerted the ACB, Palghar branch, who investigated and found out that the flying squad had broken the law by demanding a bribe of ₹1 lakh.

At around 3.45am on Tuesday, ACB laid a trap at Shirsad Phata on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway and the police constables - Datta Shinde, 32, of Boisar Police Station and Shriram Dakhure, 31, of the Manor Police Station - were caught red-handed accepting the bribe from a middleman, Trinal Dhanu, 37.

A case has been registered against the two constables and the middleman at Mandvi Police Station under Section 7 (public servant who obtains or attempts to obtain from any person, an undue advantage) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.