Cops raid TN, WB hideouts, recover 483 logs
Special task force police teams from Chittoor district under the supervision of district SP Ghattamaneni Srinivas conducted raids across the country from Sunday night in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and seized 483 logs of red sanders worth about 9 crore. They arrested a notorious smuggler Soundar Rajan and three others identified as Shanmugam, Anand and Ravi belonging to Tamil Nadu during the raid in West Bengal.
According to a senior special branch police officer, red sanders weighing about 8 tonnes and worth 5.6 crore were seized from a godown near Siliguri in West Bengal close to the Bhutan border late on Sunday night. The red sanders were ready to be transported to China through Nepal and Burma and they were expected to fetch nearly 10 crore per tonne in China.
The teams took the help of the West Bengal police when the accused resisted their raid by switching off power in the area. In a similar operation at neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the teams also held a smuggler Sarvana of Chennai and seized 167 red sander logs weighing about 4.5 tonnes and worth `3 crore from godowns at State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd. in Gummadipundi, Madhuravoil and Sholinganallur areas near Chennai.
Information provided by some smugglers held before and call data from cell phones of the woodcutters recovered from the recent encounter site at Seshachalam forest near Tirupati apart from few other places came in handy for the police for the crackdown.
Special teams have studied the call data and identified some of the people with whom the woodcutters were talking before and after entering the forest. Forest Minister Bojjala Gopalakrishna Reddy had hinted about investigation based on data from the cell phones of woodcutters a couple of days back. Although there is no confirmation from the police, the Chittoor task force teams reportedly picked up more than a dozen persons from TN playing a key role behind the smuggling and questioned them in an undisclosed location in Chittoor district. When contacted, Rayala Seema IG V. Venugopal Krishna credited Chittoor police for the raids. “It is purely an operation by Chittoor district police and they have done excellent work,” the IG said adding that the operation is still in progress in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.