Kolkata, Nov. 2 -- In a major breakthrough in the ongoing multi-crore illegal stone mining scam, the Birbhum District Police have arrested Rabiul Islam, a retired Deputy District Land and Land Reforms Officer (DL&LRO) of Birbhum.
Islam was apprehended from the Margram area in the Rampurhat subdivision on Sunday night and was subsequently produced before the Suri district court following which he was remanded to eight days police custody.
The arrest marks a critical step forward for the police, tracking a deeply entrenched bureaucratic-criminal nexus. With Islam's arrest, 11 out of the 12 primary accused individuals named in the police chargesheet are now behind bars.
The extensive investigation centers around Md. Nazibuddin, alias Tulu Mondal, an absconding stone quarry tycoon and alleged kingpin of the region's mining syndicate.
According to sources, Tulu ran a parallel revenue system by printing fake government Duplicate Carbon Receipts (DCR)s. This allowed his syndicate to illegally extract and transport stone and sand, bypassing state transit checks and defrauding the government exchequer of hundreds of crores in revenue.
Investigating officers found that this massive institutional fraud was impossible without active insider help. Top officials within the DL&LRO allegedly colluded with Mondal, effectively outsourcing official revenue operations to the syndicate's operatives.
Police previously had arrested Sabyasachi Mondal, a former Block Land and Land Reforms Officer (BLRO) of Mohammadbazar, alongside Biswajit Saha, a treasurer within the same land department.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.