The Red Sanders Anti Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) officials, with the help of dog squad, nabbed a woodcutter hiding in bushes near the teak plantation in forest areas abutting Rangampet village in Chandragiri mandal on Friday.
According to RSASTF DSP Venkataramana, the accused has been identified as one Ram Raj, hailing from Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu, who had come to fell red sanders trees in Seshachalam forests along with a group of smuggling operatives.
“We have been conducting combing in the aforesaid forest area from Thursday night and upon noticing the traces of smuggling operatives, we called in the services of the dog squad.
Moving ahead the Nagapatla East forest beat, the combing party noticed some movement and turned out to be a group of smuggling operatives fleeing the scene.
20 incidents
While, the officials tried to nab those escaping from the spot, the dog squad managed to discover one of the operatives hiding in the bushes,” he added.
The officials also recovered several provisions from the area, right from rice bags to vegetables, all of which would enable the smuggling operatives to spend some time in Seshachalam forests. Preliminary investigation further revealed that the accused, despite having sizeable cultivable land at his home town, resorted to smuggling activities with his brother, for quick buck.
Besides this, the officials had recorded nearly 20 such incidents in the aforesaid forest area, recovering red sanders logs and arresting the smuggling operatives at regular intervals.
In this regard, they have also relayed the information about the escaped smuggling operatives to the forest and police departments, simultaneously coordinating the probable exit points.
A couple of months ago, the dog squad managed to recover nine red sanders logs from a dump, about two kilometres south from the present location.
