Meet the man Dr M Kanta Rao, IPS who put TN and AP at logger heads

Meet the man, Dr M Kanta Rao, the Chief of Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSATF) whose daring acts and an encounter killing of 20 alleged smugglers has put both AP and Tamil Nadu on logger heads.

The 1999 batch IPS officer Dr. M Kanta Rao, had become a dread enemy of smugglers particularly of the red sanders wood. DIG of the AP police Kanta was appointed head of the Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSATF) of AP after smugglers killed two forest officials by stoning them in June last year.

M. Kantha Rao has struck terror in the minds and hearts of the smugglers on the AP and TN borders. There have been an alarming number of arrests of smugglers and their associates (142) of which 49 are still in jail while the rest have been released. Ever since he took over the newly formed task force Kanta Rao and his men kept watch on smugglers who had gone underground in Kadapa and Nellore districts. He is credited to have been on patrol parties to understand the ground realities.

The smugglers who always moved in big groups with vehicles, food vans etc had been popular with police, revenue and forest officials till the government had turned a blind eye on red sanders wood. Ever since the new government took over the divided AP after bifurcation, the focus was on earning revenue to the state from sale of Red sander wood. Special permissions were sought at Delhi Ministry of environment for sale and auction of red sanders.

Similarly the government set up a joint task force and also armed the forest guards and gave them speedy vehicles to tackle the smugglers and break their hegemony in the Seshachalam forest belt. Till then the smugglers formed several gangs and struck terror threatening forest, police officials whenever they were accosted in the forest belt.

Under his supervision only the Government had succeeded in seizing the properties of red sander smugglers like Vijayananda Reddy at Rajahmundry, Tirupati and Nellore. He had also succeeded in getting Interpol to issue a red corner notice on international red sander smuggler Sahul alias Amid alias Sahul Bhai operating from Dubai. He had traced the networking of the smugglers to Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok, Kaula Lumpur, Japan, Beijing and also Nepal.

Interestingly, Kanta was also popular for his networking links in the cultural organizations. He was the director of Culture department of the united AP. His career also makes him a role model for bureaucrats. He worked as veterinary Asst. Surgeon in Krishna District, Probationary officer, Syndicate Bank in Prakasham District, worked as Director AP State Culture Dept, Special Secretary (Toursim and Culture) Secretariat Head for Archaeology Dept, and Director AP State Art Gallery Earlier as GRP SP at Waragal in 2011. He was instrumental in the investigations and rescuing nearly 700 missing children; also release of children from bonded labor.

Dr Kanta Rao’s wife Usha Rani is an IAS officer, two daughters M Archana, a doctor and M Ankita, an IDBI officer.