Bhubaneswar, April 19 -- A joint team of the Revenue and Mining departments carried out a raid on an illegal sand quarry at Dhitipura along the Subarnarekha river in Odisha's Balasore district on Sunday, acting on repeated complaints of unlawful extraction. The operation was led with support from the Basta tehsil administration to curb ongoing illegal activities at the site.

As part of the crackdown, officials used a JCB to dig up and block the road leading to the quarry, restricting access and preventing further transportation of illegally mined sand. The site had reportedly been used for a long time by sand mafias for unauthorised extraction and movement of sand.

Authorities said the illegal operations had caused losses of lakhs of ru...