Tirupati: 5.086 tonne red sanders worth Rs 3 cr seized

Tirupati: In two separate major operations against red snaders smuggling, Puttur police and Red Sanders Anit-Smugglers Task Force (RSATF) personnel seized more than five tonne red sander logs valued about Rs 3 crore, the biggest haul in recent times in Chittoor district.

In both the cases, information from arrested smugglers helped the police and Task Force to seize such large quantity of logs and arrest 19 smugglers, 18 in Puttur operation and one in Task Force operation.

Addressing the media persons at Narayanavanam police station under Puttur circle, 50 km away from here on Saturday, Chittoor SP S Senthil Kumar said on the directions of Puttur DSP TD Yaswanth, a team led by Puttur CI M Suresh Kumar was conducting vehicle checking operation on Uthukota-Puttur highway on Saturday. They came across the four smugglers at Palamangalam Junction and seized 20 res sanders logs and a vehicle.

On the information given by the arrested four, the team reached Pandhulaiah Kona located on Sadasiva Kona route, a dense forest area near Puttur town, where they found another dump of 270 logs kept ready for transporting to Chennai and arrested 14 more smugglers after seizing the logs. The 290 logs seized weighed about three tonne, and are estimated to be worth Rs 1. 5 crore in the market and the seized vehicle were worth Rs 3 lakh.

Giving details of the arrested, SP Senthil Kumar said Vembakam Premkumar, Doodala Siva, J Prakash belonging to KVB Puram mandal and S Tirumala, T Gavaskar, C Anbalagan, D Karthikeyan, M Venkatesh, R Rahul, K Rajamani, K Sathish Babu, G Saravanan, K Ravikumar, C Tirupati, C Venktatesan, G Sivaraj, G Sai Nathan and P Krishnamurthy belong to Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu.

Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) SP Meda Sundar Rao while addressing media person at his office in Tirupati on Saturday, said a combing party arrested a smuggler Surendra of KVB Puram and seized seven logs from him at Athimaanu Charla Base Camp near Karakambadi on Friday.

In the interrogation, the smuggler revealed about a dump of red sander logs at a godown in Vichooru of Ponneri taluka near Chennai. On the basis of the information, a team led by CI Venkat Ravi, Armed Reserve inspector Suresh Kumar Reddy along with their team reached the godown on the same day evening and conducted a raid.

The team found iron scrap in the godown but an intelligent move by the team resulted in unearthing of 170 red sanders logs stashed on the same premises, Sundara Rao said.

The smugglers selected this godown for storing the logs because it is located very near to the Chennai port which makes it easy for them to transport the precious wood to other countries in sea route, he said

"If the team did not reach the godown by Friday evening, the smugglers would have transported these logs to other countries by cargo ships," he said and added that the value of the seized 170 logs weighing 2.086 tonne would be around Rs 1. 5 core.

A search operation was launched to nab the godown keepers Beeda Rafi and Farooq who were on run and another team was also searching for Yaswanth of Mangalam area near Tirupati who helped the smugglers take the logs to the godown in Chennai from Seshachalam forest, the SP said. RSI Ali Basha and other personnel were present.