Six held for mineral theft; three trucks seized in Odisha

Barbil: In a crackdown against mineral smuggling, the police seized three Hyva trucks while transporting minerals illegally and arrested six persons in connection with this in Odisha‘s Keonjhar district late last night. Following their arrests, the accused were forwarded to the court today.

Acting on reliable information on smuggling of minerals from closed mines in Joda mine circle, the police set up check points and carried out night patrolling since past few days. Yesterday night the police personnel intercepted the three Hyva trucks and recovered 70 metric tonnes of iron ore and 25 metric tonnes of manganese worth of around Rs 5.5 lakh from the vehicles.

While two Hyva trucks were bearing West Bengal registration numbers, the other one was having a registration number of Nagaland state.

A police official said the accused have been identified as Khirod Biruli and Rajen Munda from Dumurtta village under Bolani police limits in Keonjhar district, Mantu Kumar Jha, Raja Singh, Chandan Kumar Das from Barddhan area and Sohel Khan from Kulati area of West Bengal State.

A case no 9 dt 13.01.2021 under Section 379, 468, 471, 120b and 34 of IPC has been registered at the Barbil police station.