Brave Vellore farmer takes on sand mafia single-handed

A farmer, who by himself ‘impounded’ a tractor for illegally mining sand from Malattar river in Pernambut and deflated its tyres, had the strange experience of the police refusing to accept his complaint at Pernambut on Monday.

According to S Ramadoss (73) of Masigam village, he noticed a sand-laden tractor coming out of a 15-ft-deep pit in the river and so stopped it. “As I am also the district organiser of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association, the driver stopped and left to bring the owner, during which time, I deflated both the rear tyres of the vehicle.”

Elaborating further, he said, “When I went to the Pernambut police station, only the SI was there and he gave me the inspector’s number. When I contacted the inspector, he told me to complain to the taluk office and cut the line.”

When Ramadoss came back, he was surprised to find that the sand-laden trailer had been surreptitiously towed away by the culprits using another tractor. While the sand was not recovered, Ramadoss found that it was the cops who helped get a compressor to the spot near the river to inflate the tractor’s tyres. “Finally, I had to shell out Rs 100 to meet the auto fare,” Ramadoss said.

Meanwhile, sources in Pernambut revealed that tractors and four-wheelers involved in illegal sand-mining and two-wheelers involved in illicit distillation would invariably lack number plates. “Even if they do have registration plates, they will invariably be bogus numbers,” said PS Mani, a local resident.

Though the tractor impounded by Ramadoss too lacked number plates and the SI who accompanied workers to inflate the tyres was also aware of this lapse, no question was raised about it, Ramadoss said.

In a similar incident some months ago, the sand-laden seized trailer vanished from the custody of the Pernambut police with the tractor also being replaced with another. So much for the Pernambut police.