Jajpur: Two days after Jajpur town RTO Manoj Kumar Behera was crushed to death by a stone chips-laden truck on National Highway-215 near Nuapada Chowk while on duty, sand mafia have issued death threats to the district tehsildar.

The sand mafia have snatched two illegal sand-laden trucks from Jajpur tehsildar Laxmikanta Mishra. An FIR was filed with the Panikoili police station against the sand mafia for allegedly issuing death threats to Mishra.

According to police complaint, on directions of the district collector, the Jajpur tehsildar and the local revenue inspector went to Madhapur on Jajpur-Sathipur road to check overloading of sand-laden trucks. The trucks were carrying sand illegally lifted from the Baitarani river on Tuesday afternoon. While the tehsil team was checking requisite papers of the trucks, it found two lacking mandatory R form for carrying sand.

"When collector Ranjan Kumar Das was returning to the district headquarters town from Vyas Nagar, he spotted some trucks overloaded with sand on Sathipur-Jajpur road. The collector seized two trucks and directed me to inspect overloaded vehicles and trucks carrying smuggled minerals on Tuesday afternoon," said Mishra.

He, along with the revenue inspector, went to the site near Madhapur village.

sending the two trucks that the collector had seized to the local police station, the team started checking the overloaded vehicles.

"While we were inspecting the overloaded vehicles, we found two overloaded trucks carrying sand without requisite papers. When we seized them, two mafia arrived in an SUV and abused us," he said. The goons threatened to get a truck run over the tehsildar.

The criminals then snatched the two trucks from the revenue team and fled from the spot.

The sand mafia have been identified as Pratyush Kumar Kar and Ranjit Kumar Sahoo.

"We have filed an FIR in this connection and named both the mafia in the complaint," he said. Panikoili police inspector-in-charge Sarat Kumar Patra said a case against the mafia had been registered and investigation was on. Efforts were on to nab them, he said.