‘Sand worth Rs 200 crore seized in Rohtas missing’

SASARAM: Over 4.33 crore cubic feet (CFT) of smuggled sand worth Rs200 crore seized in Rohtas in the last one and a half years has been stolen, district assistant mines officer Gopal Kumar told this newspaper. “We are going to lodge an FIR in this connection very soon,” Gopal said.
He said the theft was detected during a physical verification of the seized sand by a team from state mines and geology department during its two-day visit on June 11 and 12.Gopal said only 51 lakh CFT of seized sand was there while the team found 4.33 crore CFT missing.
“After that a district level joint team was formed on July 15 to cross-check the stock. The team has submitted its report recently,” Gopal said. Around 4.84 crore CFT sand was seized from different parts of the district during the last one and a half years and several FIRs were also lodged in this connection. The seized sand was handed over to the sand mining licensee for safe custody, he said.
The officiating Rohtas district magistrate, Surendra kumar, however, refused to comment on the issue.
SP Rohtas, Ashish Bharati, said the police have nothing to do with the seized sand.
Incidentally, 17 officers, including two IPS officers, have been suspended recently for their alleged nexus with sand smugglers. Dehri-on-Sone sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Sunil Singh and ASP Sanjay Kumar were also punished for their suspected involvement in facilitating illegal sand mining under their respective jurisdiction.