2 boats of sand mafia around Vaitarna river destroyed

Acting against illegal sand mining in Vaitarna river, a team of revenue department officers led by Vasai tehsildar raided the surrounding area at 5.30 am on Sunday, destroyed 22 boats and three diesel engines used for suction pumps, and seized black soil worth lakhs. However, the team failed to arrest any culprit as they somehow escaped the spot.

The development comes a couple of days after this newspaper reported about the local residents complaining about the illegal sand mining damaging the Vaitarna rail bridge.

Speaking about the raid, Vasai tehsildar Gajendra Patole said, “We conducted a sudden raid and destroyed 22 fibre boats and three diesel engines. However, we were unable to nab anyone involved in illegal sand mining as we conducted the raid in the wee hours. Nonetheless, We took the action to send a strong signal to the illegal miners.”

Police sub inspector at Virar police station, Tushar Bhadane said, “We have seized black soil and also destroyed sand mining equipment at the site as per the orders of the Vasai tehsildar.”

Earlier, following confirmation that rampant sand mining had damaged the bridge’s foundation, the Western Railway (WR) initiated preventive step by putting coarse sand-filled bags around the bridge’s foundation.

The WR had also banned any activity within 500-metre periphery of the rail bridge. However, the warnings were clearly ignored by the powerful sand mafia.