Bengal sand smuggling scam: Two kingpins had meteoric rise in financial fortune

Kolkata, Sep 10 Two kingpins of the multi-crore sand smuggling rackets in West Bengal, which the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) identified during their probe, experienced a meteoric rise in their financial fortunes within a very short period of time since they entered the sand mining and trading business just a few years ago.

This has been revealed through sustained actions by the ED in different pockets of the state on Monday and Tuesday, sources have said.

One of the kingpins, Sheikh Zahirul Ali, was operating from his residence near the banks of the Subarnarekha River, at Gopiballavpur in Jhargram district, and has a minor criminal antecedent.

Sources aware of the development said that he started his career as a contractual volunteer for the police -- known as village police in West Bengal. “The minimum qualification to get that job was a certification of 8th standard pass, which he furnished. However, later the authorities found that the certificate furnished by him was forged, and he was dismissed from his services. But by then he had developed deep-rooted contacts with some politically influential personalities in the area he operated as village police,” said an insider of the central agency.

Thereafter, doing odd jobs for about a year, including that of a cycle mechanic, he started running his own sand mining and trading business, and then there was a meteoric rise in his financial fortune.

According to sources, he deliberately chose Gopiballavpur as his operation hub for two reasons. “First, this area has several illegal sand quarries which have been operating for years, allegedly taking the local community, including the police administration, into confidence. Secondly, there is a huge demand for sand available at the banks of the Subarnarekha River because of its high quality, and so Zahirul made Gopiballavpur his operation hub to sell that in the open markets at double the government rates,” the agency insider said.

On Tuesday, the ED sleuths recovered Rs 26 lakh in unaccounted cash, besides several incriminating documents from his residence at Gopiballavpur.

Somewhat similar was the meteoric rise in financial fortune in the case of the second kingpin identified in the matter, Sourav Roy, who operated from the Basantapur area in the West Midnapore district.

According to his neighbours, he started his career as a small-time government contractor in the district, and during that period, he developed deep-rooted contacts with some politically influential personalities in the area. A couple of years ago, he also started his sand mining and trading business, and since then, there has been a huge rise in his financial fortune.

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