Early on Sunday morning, two small sandalwood trees were axed at the Race Course Road.
However, the gang abandoned both the trees and fled the place as the security guard in a nearby hotel blew his whistle.
Race Course Police said that the incident took place between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. after people had left a nearby cinema complex after the night show and before people came to the busy walking track for their morning walk. One of the trees, estimated to be 10-year-old, was axed from the walking track of Race Course opposite a hotel.
Around the same time, a five-year-old tree was axed in a park opposite the theatre complex – close to the place where the first tree was felled.
Police sources said after hearing the sound of trees being cut using an electric saw, a security guard at the hotel blew his whistle.
On hearing the sound, the gang realised that they would be caught, left both the trees and fled the place. Police and forest department personnel visited the spot, recovered remains of the trees and conducted preliminary inquiries.
The police were trying to identify the miscreants with CCTV footage recorded in that vicinity.
