Dhenkanal: The Special Task Force (STF), with the help of Dhenkanal Police, conducted multiple raids on illegal stone quarries in the Rasol, Balimi and Motogan PS areas and seized a huge number of drilling/ breaking/transporting machines and explosives along with the arrest of five accused persons.
The arrested accused persons are identified as Bishnu Munda, Nagendra Bhoi, Dhanmani Dehuri, Jay Kumar Biswal and Mahesh Samal.
According to sources, illegal mining of black stones has been going on in hundreds of quarries at Rasol, Balimi and Odapada blocks of Dhenkanal district for the past many years.
Acting on intelligence inputs, STF and Dhenkanal police today carried out a joint raid at the illegal stone quarried and apprehended five people and seized a huge cache of explosives, detonators and chemicals used for blasting.
As black stone is abundant in Dhenkanal district, the stone mafia has been quarrying the stone from illegal quarries with the help of machines and explosives and supplying it to the miners for years.
During the raid, the STF team seized 2 Hitachi breakers, 2 Poclain machines, 1 JCB, 2 Tata trucks, 2 compressors, 3 drill machines, batteries, and 6 pump sets used in mining. Along with this, 200 detonators, 75 gelatin sticks, and 50 kg of ammonium nitrate were seized.
As the arrested persons could not provide any valid documents related to explosives and stone mines, case no 166/23 was registered against them at Rasol police station, case no 200/23 at Balimi police station and 187/23 at Motanga police station.
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