Chittoor police on Monday nabbed eight red sanders operatives and seized four tonnes of precious wood worth over ₹5 crore, along with two lorries and a car, in two separate incidents.
Addressing a press conference here, Superintendent of Police S. Senthil Kumar said in the wake of spurt in the red sanders smuggling activity from Chittoor district towards Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, special parties were formed to tackle the goings-on.
As part of this, Deputy SP (Puttur) T.D. Yashwant and his team led the operation at Taduku forest check post on the outskirts of Puttur in the early hours of Monday. Acting on reliable information that a lorry laden with red sanders logs was on the move towards Chennai from the Seshachalam hills near Tirupati, the raid party rushed to the spot and intercepted the vehicle at the check post. When the lorry driver tried to give a slip to the police personnel, the latter chased the vehicle for a distance of two kilometers, and arrested six operatives and seized the lorry with 103 logs.
In the second incident, Deputy SP (Chittoor) N. Sudhakar Reddy and his team led the operation at Kodigutta Cross, near Murakambattu, on the Chittoor-Bengaluru NH on Monday morning, intercepting a lorry and a car, both carrying 65 logs. Two persons were nabbed in this operation.
Meetings on
Mr. Senthil Kumar said that there had been a series of coordination meetings among the SPs of the Rayalaseema districts, vulnerable to red sanders smuggling and offering transit routes to neighbouring States. “We have also undertaken commando operations with both district police and the Special Enforcement Bureau personnel to tackle the red sanders smuggling menace, apart from intensifying night vigil and highway patrolling, and invoking of PD Acts against the notorious offenders,” the SP said.
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