Madurai: In what came as a breakthrough in the illegal mining cases against PRP Exports, an underground facility that housed a server room was unearthed on the company premises on Friday. Computer hard disks with a total memory of over 2,000 GB — said to contain vital information pertaining to the firm’s operations — were seized from the underground server room.
“The firm’s staff and managers had already removed the hard discs from their office computers before the raids were conducted. They did so to hide evidence from police. But now, we have found the main server connected to all the computers in the office. We have also found the hard discs,” an official said.
When the police officials first found the underground facility, they found two rooms there. Though nothing was found in the first room, the second one turned out to be the server facility.
Navy to be roped in
Officials with the Revenue Department have planned to seek the help of the Navy to undertake measurement of water tanks (kanmaai) where mining operations used to be carried out by the granite firms in Melur. “They have illegally mined in 24 water bodies in the quarry area. The companies did not follow the guidelines and conditions of the lease agreement laid down by the Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN). We cannot assess the exact levels till where the mining was done in these deep tanks due to the stagnant water. The Fire and Rescue personnel are also not experienced in this sort of operation,” an official said.
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