Superintendent of police, commissioner of police hold meeting
Picture for representational purpose
Visakhapatnam: With the existence of police officers-sand mafia nexus in many parts of Vizag, the top cops have started vigilance against those who are illegally extracting the sand from various river banks and also to suspend some police officers to break the connection with the sand mafia.
Superintendent of police (Visakha Rural) and in-charge commissioner of police held a meeting on Wednesday to curb rampant sand mining in the region. The sand mafia in the region either is directly controlled by or supported by some of the local politicians and concerned police officers. Sand mining is going on blatantly and was causing degradation of ecological balance and water bodies also.
Though police department is placing curbing the sand mining on top of its priority list following the instructions by the Chief Minister, some police officers are directly supporting the sand mafia by taking hefty bribes from them. “We have found that despite repeated warnings given to police officers to curb illegal sand mining at various places, sand mafia continues to excavate sand from various rivers in Chodavaram, Anakapalle, Narsipatnam, Devarapalle, Payakaraopeta and some places in the district,” said superintendent of police Koyya Praveen. Flouting all regulations, excavators are being used in some places and sand is exported through tractors and lorries.
Recently deputy inspector general of police (Visakha range) P. Umpapathi suspended circle inspector of Chodavaram, A. Viswe-swaram on the recommendation of Koya Praveen for his nexus with sand mafia. Similarly, SI of Chodava-ram Vijay Kumar has been kept in vacancy reserved (VR) by the SP for failure to curb the sand mining. Sources in police department said that some top cops made surprise visits and found that sand mining is going on blatantly with the support of a few police officers.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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