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Sand-smuggling: another held under goonda Act

PATHANAMTHITTA: The Kizhvaipur police, on Saturday, arrested Ajith, 36, alias Kuttan, of Anicaud in Mallappally taluk, under the goonda Act in connection with sand-smuggling.

He is the fourth to be so arrested in the taluk in the past 10 days.

The police said Ajith was an accused in many criminal cases and part of the so-called sand mafia. He had been shifted to the Poojappura Central Jail in Thiruvananthapuram.

The accused “owned” no fewer than four lorries in some else’s name and two of them have been taken into police custody for sand-smuggling, the police said.

Those arrested earlier are Anilkumar, 33; Muraleedharan, 45; and Santhosh, 26. They are in the central jail.

The Manimala river basin stretch in Kizhvaipur police station limits in Mallappally taluk is notorious as a hub of the sand mafia.

The goons of the mafia had attacked the former Thiruvalla Sub-Collector Pranab Jyotinath more than once.

It is alleged that political patronage had helped the accused in that case be at large.

K.A. Verghese, environmental activist and member of the State-level committee for wetland protection and river conservation, was attacked more than five times in the past five months.

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