The Rural Police have swung into action, with the support of its Shadow police wing, to keep tabs on illegal sand-miners and their attempts to sell the smuggled sand on the black market. The Shadow police get the larger responsibility in the fresh drive following a direction from District Police Chief (Vadakara) P.H. Ashraf.
The operation of the Shadow police team will be in addition to the existing surveillance steps taken by the revenue squads under the headship of tahsildars and other senior revenue officers. Along with this, the support of civil police officers too will be utilised to strengthen the checking.
“In the new drive, we will ensure the participation of police officials from all the rural police stations. Along with this, people who try to market impure sea sand and weathered sand too will be tracked,” said Mr. Ashraf. He maintained that the rural police team was acting very tough on such illegal players and over 3,000 illegal sand carriers had already been seized.
The Shadow team, on Tuesday, took into custody several loads of packed sand and mining equipment from various places in Koduvally. According to police sources, migrant labourers were reportedly employed there for carting away the sand.