Officials too under scanner in illegal transit pass scam: CP

Nagpur: The city police, after making five arrests in the illegal interstate transit pass scam on Sunday, are now set to bring the roles of the concerned revenue officials also under scrutiny for lapses which have come to the fore. The crime branch team had last week arrested the mastermind of the transit pass racket from Bhopal.
City police chief Amitesh Kumar, who initiated a crackdown on the illegal sand mafia, said the involvement of revenue officials cannot be ruled out as various irregularities related to mining are trickling out.He has engaged eight officers of the crime branch under DCP Chinmay Pandit to conduct the probe.
“The latest arrests were made after the MP-based accused (Rahul Khanna) was interrogated about the illegal beneficiaries of the racket in Maharashtra,” said the top cop, adding, the accused-official nexus would be unearthed.
Kumar also said the three prime aspects of the probe revolved around the key issues related to sand mining which begins from issuing of the illegal electronic transit passes. “Issuing of the illegal transit passes is one aspect. Our probe also includes use of the illegally issued transit passes in Maharashtra for excavation of sand from particular ghats and their transportations,” said the CP.
“The third angle of the probe revolves around the racket of transportation with fake and irregular transit passes and who helps them to operate,” he said.
The five alleged illegal sand miners arrested by the crime branch have been identified as Surendra Sawarkar (Khapa), Ashish Gaur (Saoner), Piyush Burde (Khapa), Mahesh Chakole (Saoner) and Ishan Bangde (Saoner). Police said the five persons were procuring illegal e-transit passes from Khanna to operate in Maharashtra.
DCP Chinmay Pandit said police would soon write to the concerned district collectors of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with the details of the accused unearthed during the ongoing probe. “The role of the officials, especially those from MP, are dubious as one after the other e-TPs of their ghats were being issued but sand was not excavated from any one of those should have come to their notice by now and action should have been taken,” said Pandit, adding, more arrests are likely to take place.
CP Kumar had earlier instructed every police station to ensure that cases of illegal sand mining are probed keeping in mind that e-transit passes may be fake or irregular after busting of the MP-based racket. He has also urged the investigating officers to probe whether the accused are connected to Khanna too.