Cops go hi-tech to curb illegal sand mining

Mahabubnagar police use WhatsApp to collect tipoffs about unlawful mining activities

Mahabubnagar: In a novel move, the Mahabubnagar police have gone a tad hi-tech and adopted a unique method of using ‘WhatsApp’ mobile application to contain illegal land mining in the district. Mahabubnagar Superintendent of Police (SP) Shiva Prasad has launched special ‘whatsApp’ numbers to nab illegal sand mining gangs in the district.

As part this, two numbers viz., 7680891500 and 9490619423 have been launched by the district police department on October 27. According to the SP, despite various raids and constant vigil to curb the illegal sand mafia, the menace of illegal sand mining is still continuing under the cover of officials and local leaders, thereby causing huge losses to the government exchequer.

To counter this, the police thought of a unique idea to utilise the mobile information technology using which anybody could send the information of illegal sand mining to the district police department from anywhere in the district, he said. Since the launch of this innovative method, during the past one week, the SP office has been flooded with complaints on ‘WhatsApp’ along with photo evidences of illegal sand miners.

So far, the police have booked four cases in Balanagar mandal and five cases in Shadnagar mandal based on these evidences. For licensed sand miners, the police issued a directive to carry out their activities only during 10 am in the morning to 5 pm at night.

The district police have also opened a special wing to look over these complaints on a continuous basis. The recent Hyderabad High Court’s directive to the district administration to curb illegal sand mining is said to be giving positive results as the police are seriously taking steps to contain theft of sand from the riverbeds, after the court order.