Palghar sand mining raid: 10 held, load worth Rs 4.7 crore seized

The sand carried in the trucks was estimated to be worth more than Rs 20 lakh.

Police teams from Saphale and Virar, in two separate raids on Friday and Saturday, seized 48 sand trucks, carrying load worth ₹4.7 crore obtained from illegal sand mining. Ten persons, including drivers and truck owners, were arrested and will be produced in court on Sunday.

In Virar, police spotted 43 trucks parked on the roadside. (HT Photo)

In the first raid in Sapahale on Friday evening, Palghar’s superintendent of police, Gaurav Singh, spotted 43 trucks — with their licence plates concealed using mud and dirt —parked on one side of the road near Khanivade Bunder, filled with illegally-mined sand. Drivers of seven trucks on spotting the police absconded from the spot, said Singh. The load was estimated to be worth R4.5 crore.

“For the second raid, we received a tip-off about sand truck movements at 3am [on Saturday] in Virar, off the Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway,” said assistant police inspector, Sunil Jadhav, from the Sapahale police station. “We halted the trucks to check their documents and none of them had government permits to extract sand. We arrested 10 drivers under Section 379 (theft) of the IPC and Maharashtra Land Revenue Code,1966 and will produce them before the Palghar court on Sunday.” The sand carried in these trucks was estimated to be worth more than ₹20 lakh.