Jamshedpur, April 9 : Acting on a tip off police on Sunday arrested a 45-year-old man with smuggled emeralds at DimnaChowk under MGM police station area.
Police seized three polythene bags from the arrested person, who was identified as Vinod Kumar Chaturvedi, a resident of Prem Nagar in Telco. The arresting took place at the DimnaChowk in Mango at 8.30 am. The value of emeralds weighing 600 grams is estimated to over Rs 7 lakh.
Superintendent of police (rural) Shailendra Kumar Burnwal said that acting on a tip off they acted against him. They had got an information that a six-feet tall man, wearing a suit was travelling from Ghurabandha in Ghatshila subdivision in a Jamshedpur-bound mini-bus. He said they were also tipped off that the man might be smuggling emerald from the Ghurbandha-based emerald mines to Bistupur.
“As we received information we alerted all the police station falling along the NH-33 from Ghurabandha. The man, finally got down at DimnaChowk. As he came out of the bus, a police team led by sub-inspector Lalal Mishra frisked him.The police got three polythene bags from his possession, and the bags contained emeralds,” said Burnwal.
According to the SP (rural), during interrogation the man claimed that he was bringing the precious stones from Odisha, but as he could not show any document related to those stones, he was arrested.
Burnwal said the place where emeralds are mined in Ghurabandha shares its border with Odisha’sMayurbhanj district.
The emerald mines in Ghurabandha is located about 90 kms away from here on the Odisha border. According to police, as the police on the Odisha side are doing nothing to stop the mining and smuggling of the precious stone, the smugglers tend to carrying on their business through Odisha majorly. But in the event of anyone strays into the consignment of emeralds into the Jharkhand side, one gets caught.
Burnwal informed that they have approached the management of Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) as well as the Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) to provide bulldozers so that they may flattened numerous tunnel-like pits that the emerald pickers have made on the Ghurabandha side of the emerald mines.
An official said that stones mined illegally from Gurabandha area under Ghatshilasub division. Police were conducting raids to nab the others involved in this unlawful trade and mining.He said they were in touch with the Ghatshila police see the kind of arrangement the accused had made for mining and processing the precious stone.
“We are consulting with the mining department, and take opinion from the experts about the cost of the confiscated materials,” said an official.
