The Thiruvananthapuram Division of the Forest Department recently grabbed headlines with the seizure of 400 kilograms of sandalwood along with around 20 sandalwood idols, said to be worth around Rs.7 crore. Two weeks later, probe into the seizure is yet to pick up steam.
Moreover, with one of the persons arrested during the raids producing receipts stating that he had bought the sandalwood from the State-run S.M.S.M. Institute emporium near the Secretariat, the accused could just be charged for just keeping more than the permitted quantity of sandalwood.
Two of the four persons who escaped during the raid surrendered four days later. Official sources said they had received information that the two absconding — Nakulan and Ani — might soon surrender.
Even then, the original source of the sandalwood could remain unknown. There have been no concrete efforts yet to go deeper into officials’ statements on the day of the raid that they had information on the sandalwood coming in from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and that the artisans here had international links to sell the idols.
With the artisans stating that they had purchased the sandalwood from the emporium and through auctions conducted at the Forest Department’s depots, the officials here have now written to all Forest ranges in the State where sandalwood is present to check whether there was any such transaction and if any stock from those ranges, including Marayoor, Aryankavu, Kanthalloor and Chalakudy, was missing.
J. Satheeshan, Range Officer, Paruthipally, who is the investigating officer, said replies from the ranges would take time since verifying stocks was time-consuming.
Now, the only violation on part of the artisans was that they had no permission from the authority concerned to store more than one kg of sandalwood, and not of any sandalwood theft or smuggling.
