Officials of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Tuesday, October 10 began searches at sand quarries on the Cauvery river bed in Mallampalayam and Nanniyur near Karur.
According to sources, the officials, accompanied by a team of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, arrived at the quarries at around 10 a.m. and took stock of the situation. The officials, numbering about 10, were said to have measured the permitted area of the quarries and the actual extent of sand mining.
The searches were said to be the fall-out of a State- wide operation of the ED against illegal sand mining, allegedly by sand barons, with the connivance of some personnel of the Water Resources Department’s sand mining division, as well as other officials of various line departments in different parts of the State.
The central agency conducted searches on September 12, 2023 at all sand stockyards or depots and claimed to have seized incriminating documents pointing to irregularities in the sale of sand. They also seized CCTV footage and other data storage devices. An office of sand quarries had been searched then, but not the quarries themselves, in Karur district.
On September 12, minutes after the news of the ED searches began circulating, persons and officials, who were on duty that day in Mallampalayam and Nanniyur, had led the scene with documents, receipts and other material evidence. They also damaged the mud path to the quarries, so as to prevent the ED officials from reaching the mining sites.
