Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Nov 11: A truck carrying sand got stuck in the pothole of the asphalted road at Toranakatte Mittamoole in Punacha village near Vittal on the night of Monday November 9. The heavily loaded truck could not be moved even after the best efforts of the driver. It is learnt that the sand was being illegally transported at night to Kerala.

Mohammed, owner of the truck, who was in a hurry to reach Badiyadka in Kasargod district, summoned a backhoe to take out the truck. After the machine failed to get the truck to move, he dug the asphalted road to a length of 10 metres, and breadth of a metre. Even after this exercise, he could not get the truck out.

By then, it was dawn, and the villagers who saw the dug out road, informed the Punacha panchayat. Panchayat vice-president, K V Mahesh Shetty, lodged a complaint with the Vittal police station about the digging of the PWD road without permission. The station in-charge, Umesh Uppalige, found that it was an act of illegal sand transporters. Besides registering a complaint, the policemen took into possession the truck and the backhoe.

In another case, the people stopped a truck that was carrying over 3,000 bags of sand at Ukkuda-Darbe on Tuesday November 10. The bags were mechanically sealed to hoodwink the officials at the border. The Vittal policemen have registered a case.

Of late, in spite of the ban on movement of sand, the transporters continue to transport sand through rail, truck and other means, as there has been a ban on sand mining in Kerala. Efforts of the authorities to enforce the orders of the district administration have come to nought, as the transporters get tacit support from those manning the chek posts at the district borders, the people believe.