BARBIL: Smuggling of manganese and iron ore continues unabated in Joda mining circle as the mafia focuses on raising minerals illegally from forest patches away from the closed and surrendered mining areas. On Wednesday night, Barbil Police seized a whopping 95 tonne ore during a night patrol interception.
Six persons were arrested by from Bolani-Barbil road while transporting manganese and iron ore in three trucks. Acting on a tip-off, a police team intercepted the trucks on their way to Jharkhand. Two trucks were loaded with 71 tonne iron ore while the third was carrying 24 tonne manganese ore.
The minerals were sourced from Dumurta revenue forest area. Police said, the miscreants were identified as Khirod Biruli and Rajen Munda of Dumurta village under Bolani police limits while Mantu Kumar Ojha, Sohel Khan, Raja Singh hailed from West Bengal. The sixth accused Chndan Kumar Das was from Banka district of Bihar.
On Thursday, Barbil range officer Surjit Sahu visited Dumurta forest and reportedly found huge quantity of ores lying in the open. The Mining department has been requested to take possession of the minerals.
Earlier on December 28, Barbil police had seized a truck smuggling 43 tonne of manganese ore worth `6 lakh from Thakurani reserve forest.
While four persons were arrested in the case, a special team headed by Assistant Conservator of Forest, Keonjhar was assigned the task to investigate the matter. As many as 220 sacks of manganese ore were found inside the forest.
Later, huge quantity of manganese ore was found packed in sacks at three different spots in Sidhhamatha reserve forest. During investigation, the Forest officials discovered that the smugglers had constructed several motorable roads inside forests by felling a number of sal trees to illegally transport ores from abandoned mines. Both the Forest and Mining departments are yet to assess the amount of ores smuggled from the mines so far.