Thaindian News

Bhubaneswar, Nov 12 (IANS) Orissa’s vigilance department, probing an alleged multi-crore mining scam in the state, raided the offices of a leading mining company here and found irregularities in running of several mines, a senior official said Thursday.
A team of nearly 100 officials from the police, forest, vigilance, income tax, geologists and sales tax departments have been raiding the offices of the firm Sirajuddin and Company since early this week, he said.

“Today (Thursday) also the raids are on. We have found prima facie evidence of several irregularities,” vigilance department director Anup Kumar Patnaik told IANS.

“The raids were conducted at the manganese and iron ore mines of the company in Keonjhar district and company’s office in neighbouring West Bengal.

“We have also raided premises of the two associates of the mines,” he said without disclosing their names and places.

“There are lots of irregularities. They were digging up ore without licence. Another mysterious thing that we found is that they were trying to fill up some of the mining pits,” he said.

“We are investigating why they were doing that. It seems they were closing the pits to destroy evidence,” he said.

No official of Sirajuddin and Company was available for comment.

The vigilance department was asked in July to investigate after opposition parties produced documentary evidences of large scale illegal mining in mineral-rich Keonjhar district.

Patnaik said four criminal cases against different mine owners, and forest and mine department officials were registered in August and eight people were arrested.

He said some more criminal cases are likely to be registered after the completion of the latest raids.

Orissa has approximately 600 mines and over 2,400 ore traders.

Earlier this week, the government had ordered suspension of work in 69 mines and ordered suspension of the licences of at least 482 traders after they failed to produce documents to show that their mining activities were legal.