Police have alerted immigration authorities to help
them in preventing Durai Dayanidhi, union minister M.K. Alagiri’s son,
and 11 others from leaving the country in connection with alleged
illegal granite quarrying into which the State government has launched a
crackdown.
“We have requested immigration department
to detain them at airports and inform us if they are spotted. We
understand some have already left India and some are trying to flee the
country,” a top police official who did not wish to be named, said.
He said police have no authority to issue a lookout notice and can only make a request to immigration authorities.
Besides
Mr. Durai Dayanidhi, others named include Maharajan, Nagarajan, P
Sureshkumar, P Senthilkumar, P K Selvaraj, Veeramani, Periyasamy and
four others of different granite companies.
Police said a special team is searching for them and had already frozen the companies’ accounts.
They
said a team of auditors was collecting the banking transactions of
these companies. Auditors of the companies and some officials of Tamil
Nadu Minerals are also being questioned, they said.
On
August 7, cases were registered against 10 persons, including Mr. Durai
Dayanidhi, charging companies owned by them with mining sand and
granite without permission.
The action came close on
the heels of a detailed survey of 175 granite quarrying sites by the
district administration on a report by former District Collector U.
Sagayam, estimating loss to the state exchequer by illegal quarrying at
Rs. 16,338 crore.
