Kerala Trucks Seized As They Continue To Dump Medical Waste In Mysuru; Two Arrested

At a time when Mysuru is vying to bag the top place in the Cleanest City ranking under Swachh Bharat Mission, trucks from Kerala continue to dump waste including hazardous medical waste on roadsides, especially in the areas that border Mysuru City Corporation and the Mysuru District.

Kerala that is facing a huge crisis in solid waste management has found a convenient way of getting rid of waste by dumping them in Mysuru where trucks laden with waste cross the border in the night, dump waste and again cross the border in the wee hours.

The hazardous garbage in the form of bio-medical waste is being dumped unabated and this is threatening the health of local residents. On Tuesday (28 January), an alert team of district police seized two trucks with bio-medical waste and two persons were arrested at Adakanahalli Industrial Area in Nanjangud taluk.

The arrested have been identified as Afzal Muneer and Syed Mohammed. Their accomplices Kabir, Shoaib and Muneer are absconding and efforts are on to trace them. It was found that the accused transported the loads of bio-medical waste from Kozhikode and they have earlier dumped eight to 10 similar loads in the vicinity.

Superintendent of Police (SP) C B Ryshyanth told reporters that two trucks from Kozhikode in Kerala entered Mysuru late at night and were about to unload the medical waste on Government land around Adakanahalli Industrial Area when the Police intervened. The trucks crossed the check post in Nanjangud at around 3:30 am and the Police followed the trucks and caught the two occupants when they were trying to unload the medical waste.

Though complaints of dumping of waste from Kerala in Mysuru had been made earlier also, the SP said that the Police had managed to catch the accused red-handed involved in the dumping of medical waste after setting up a check post at Nanjangud that is manned 24×7.

The accused will be booked under provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, for transporting medical waste without proper documentation as well as for environmental degradation under the anti-pollution laws.

Trucks carrying plastic waste, packing materials, medical waste and other non-biodegradable waste from Kerala, which enter city outskirts through various inter-State check posts, have been dumping waste at private lands.

It may be recalled that the Mysuru City Corporation officials had seized a couple of trucks which were dumping waste transported from Kerala. Also, similar seizures were reported in Gundlupet, Chamarajanagar.