Suri, Jan. 17: Several residents of Mayureswar, where a mob burnt police vehicles after a sand-laden truck killed a youth, said Friday's fury was directed at policemen because they did not stop trucks from speeding down village roads with illegally mined sand.

The villagers in Birbhum's Mayureswar, who did not want to be named, said the trucks carrying sand illegally hoarded from the nearby Mayurakshi river bank, did not take the state highway as they would have to pay fines for over-loading at an irrigation department check post.

A resident of Mayureswar's Majhigram village said: "We repeatedly requested the police to stop the sand-laden vehicles from taking roads other than those that have check posts. But the police don't pay heed as they have financial arrangements with the unauthorised sand dealers."

District police chief Mukesh Kumar did not take calls or reply to a text message when his reaction was sought on the matter.

Another villager in Mayureswar said: "We were angry for a long time and on Friday, after the youth was killed in the road accident, there was a spontaneous outburst."

That day, a speeding sand-loaded truck allegedly tailed by a police car mowed down a youth. The mob in Mayureswar, about 50km from Bolpur town, burnt two police vehicles and ransacked the police station, setting some parts of it on fire.

Villagers said police cars sometimes chased the trucks if the drivers did not pay up.

Policemen deserted the station during the rampage and later arrested nine persons.

Irrigation department officials corroborated the claims of the Mayureswar residents about the trucks speeding down village roads.

Department officials said that instead of taking the Sainthia-Kandi road, which is a state highway, the dumpers and trucks skirt it so that they don't have to pay the fines. The vehicles make a detour through Kotasur and Mayureswar by "managing the police", an irrigation department official said.

The fine for overloading is Rs 9 per cubic feet of extra sand. A district irrigation official said: "If a truck is caught at an irrigation check post, it has to pay the fine if it is overloaded."

He said: "The truck owner may be liable to pay a fine of, say, Rs 1,800, but the transporter will pay the police Rs 500-800 and go to their destination by taking another road. While using the routes, the truck drivers speed, leading to accidents," the irrigation department official said.

On July 7 last year, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed officials at an administrative meeting in Bolpur to stop illegal sand mining. Days before her instruction to the officials, three Trinamul activists were killed in Burdwan's Khandaghosh in a faction fight suspected to be the fallout of sand pilfering.

Police sources said there have been at least six road accidents in the past year involving sand-laden trucks in Mayureswar and Sainthia running over pedestrians, three of whom died.

District irrigation officials said the four check posts across Birbhum were supposed to keep tabs on mining from 54 licensed mines along four rivers.

A senior department official said: "We don't have adequate manpower to increase the number of check posts."