13,692 Vehicles. 446 FIRs. Zero Masterminds
J&K’s mining crackdown is impressive theatre, but the real criminals are still at the table
Numbers, presented with sufficient confidence, can masquerade as accountability. The Jammu and Kashmir government has become skilled at this particular performance. Over the past two years, 13,692 vehicles have been seized and 446 FIRs registered across the Union Territory in the crackdown on illegal mining, with seizures accelerating sharply, 7,473 vehicles confiscated in 2025-26 alone, surpassing the previous year’s total within just nine months. Penalties of ₹16.37 crore have been recovered in the current financial year. The Mining Department announces these figures with
the satisfaction of an administration that believes enforcement and justice are the same thing. They are not. The highest seizures were recorded in Kupwara, Kathua, and Baramulla riverbed districts, where sand and mineral extraction has stripped riverbeds bare, accelerated flooding, and destroyed agricultural land for generations downstream. The vehicles seized belong to drivers, transporters, and daily-wage operators, the bottom of a supply chain whose top remains untouched, unnamed, and almost certainly well-connected. This is J&K’s mining problem in its most honest form.
The trucks get seized. The men who own the leases, the officials who enable the approvals, the politicians whose patronage makes the entire operation possible, they read about the crackdowns in the morning newspaper over breakfast. Thirteen thousand seized vehicles is not a crackdown. It is a culling of expendable assets while the operation’s architects remain protected. Name the masterminds. Prosecute the licensors. Follow the money, not just the trucks. Until then, these numbers are not accountability. They are decorations.
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