GURUGRAM: Ten people have been arrested in four cases for allegedly bringing garbage and plastic waste from Delhi and dumping it inside Gurugram, police said on Sunday, in the first set of arrests since the state government ordered such vehicles to be seized.

Seven vehicles, a mix of canters and tractor-trolleys that investigators say were used to ferry the waste, have been recovered. The Haryana Police announced the arrests on its official account on Sunday evening, saying the role of the vehicle owners and the wider network behind the trips is still being examined.

Two of the cases were registered at Bajghera police station, and one each at Udyog Vihar and Rajendra Park police stations. All three police station areas sit close to the Delhi border, where open plots along service roads and the edges of new sectors have for months been used as informal dumping grounds.

According to police, the special drive was carried out on the directions of the Commissioner of Police, Gurugram, under the supervision of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (West). Teams set up checks and naka-bandi at several points and intercepted vehicles that, investigators allege, were carrying mixed waste from across the border.

According to police, plastic was being sorted out of the waste and moved on to other places, which suggests the trips were not only about getting rid of garbage cheaply. Police said they are trying to establish who was buying or handling the segregated plastic. None of the accused has been convicted, and the allegations will have to be proved in court.

The crackdown follows Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's direction at his Gurugram development review last week that vehicles bringing Delhi garbage into the city be identified, impounded and fined heavily. Dalimss had reported that order in its account of the Chief Minister's directions on Delhi garbage trucks, where officials were told the city would not be allowed to become a dumping ground.

Why the border belt keeps filling up

Dumping on the Delhi edge is an old complaint in Gurugram. Residents' groups in the older sectors close to the border have taken it up with the corporation more than once this year, and the pattern they describe is the same: a pile is cleared, and a few nights later a fresh load arrives.

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram is in the middle of its own 10-day campaign on garbage points, launched on 2 October. The civic body's drive to clear 21 garbage vulnerable points across the city depends on the same spots not being refilled by outside trucks, which is why the police action and the sanitation drive are being watched together.

There is also an environmental cost beyond the smell and the flies. Mixed waste dumped on open land leaches into soil and stormwater drains, and plastic often ends up burnt. Similar complaints have come up on the Aravalli side, where dumping along the Gurugram-Faridabad road drew scrutiny last month.

Police said they are now collecting details of the owners of the seized vehicles. If any owner is found to have knowingly allowed a vehicle to be used for illegal dumping, action will be taken against them as well, a senior officer said in the police statement. Interrogation of the 10 arrested men is continuing.

For residents, the practical question is whether the checks will continue once the first round of arrests is over. Police have described the action as an ongoing drive rather than a one-day operation. Dumping in progress can be reported on the emergency number 112, while civic complaints about uncleared waste go to the corporation through its official channels on mcg.gov.in.

Officials have not said how many trips the alleged network made or how long it had been operating. Those numbers, more than the 10 arrests, will show how deep the racket runs, and whether cases follow against vehicle owners before the corporation's garbage-point campaign wraps up on 11 October.