Five sand tipper truck drivers and their assistants were arrested on Saturday at the Paranthan checkpoint in Kilinochchi for allegedly attempting to bribe police officers, Hiru News reported. The group was travelling from Vavuniya to Jaffna.
What the bribe was for
Police said the suspects offered money to stop officers from signing the inspection section of their sand transport permits — documents issued by the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB).
That detail is the substance of the case. A GSMB permit authorises a fixed quantity of sand to move along a fixed route, and the inspection endorsement is what records that a load was checked in transit. An unsigned permit can therefore be presented as unused and run again. The alleged offer was not to wave a load through a checkpoint but to keep the paperwork clean enough to reuse.
The suspects are residents of Vavuniya, Ramanathapuram, Dharmapuram, Anandapuram and Puloly. Hiru gives their ages as 28, 29, 40 and 49 — four ages for five people, with one unaccounted for. They were produced before the Kilinochchi Magistrate’s Court and remanded until 21 September.
A documented weak point
Permit misuse in this district is not a new complaint. A Daily Mirror news feature on illegal sand mining in Kilinochchi reported that the District Secretary sent the GSMB Director General a list of 89 vehicles fined three or more times for illegal sand mining between 2022 and 2025, compiled after a District Committee Meeting on 28 March 2025 and forwarded in a letter dated 19 May 2025. The Senior Superintendent of Police for Kilinochchi separately asked the GSMB to stop re-issuing permits to vehicles and individuals already fined, warning that continuing to do so made enforcement harder. (Daily Mirror — an earlier feature, linked here for background rather than as reporting on Saturday’s arrests.)
Enforcement in the wider area has also been active. In August, forest officers began legal action over illegal sand mining in the Paranthan Proposed Reserve in Vavuniya District, and the Vavuniya District Secretary ordered all sand mining in that area suspended pending ecosystem safeguards. Saturday’s arrests were at the Paranthan checkpoint in Kilinochchi and concern permitted transport rather than extraction inside the reserve; Hiru draws no connection between the two.
Not reported
Hiru does not name the suspects, give the fifth person’s age, say how much money was allegedly offered, or say whether the sand being carried was itself legally extracted and within permit volumes. It also does not say whether the officers involved reported the offer themselves, whether the vehicles or their loads were impounded, or whether the permits have been suspended pending the case.