Smugglers and woodcutters sneaking into the Seshachalam woods to ferry away the red sanders are now extensively facing the heat with the forest, police and taskforce teams leaving no stone unturned to catch them in the act. As a result, they are forced to change their modus operandi and also take up alternative routes and modes of smuggling.
The ambush last Monday night near Chandragiri fort was a typical example of the change in strategy.
Earlier, the smugglers directly took their trucks into Seshachalam forest from Bhakarapet ghat road and loaded the felled logs.
With enhanced surveillance, they stealthily trekked a hillock to reach the forest abutting Bhimavaram, Naravaripalle and Seshapuram. With the cops setting sight on these forest fringe villages too since a month, it is apparent that they have started climbing up and down another hillock to reach the rear side of Chandragiri fort, which is just one km away from the Tirupati-Chittoor highway.
The ambush team comprising forest strike force members and base camp guards lay in wait at a mango garden near the fort, when they found people climbing down the hillock.
While one of them was caught, the policemen traced 50 logs at the spot.
When the apprehended woodcutter spilled the beans about the presence of thirty more culprits above the hillock, the forest team surrounded the hillock to prevent them from fleeing the spot.
“All of them, however, managed to escape under cover of darkness”, says T.V. Subba Reddy, Divisional Forest Officer (Tirupati Wildlife Management Circle).
The guards later climbed up the hillock to find thirty more logs.
The department had to be content with the lone arrested culprit and the 80 logs, the weight of which is pegged approximately at four tonnes.
Similarly, logs were seized from an oil tanker in Chowdepalle limits in Palamaner police division recently.
Acting on a tip-off that a tanker was moving into a mango garden owned by a past offender Krishna Reddy, the policemen initially thought it to be spirit or illicit liquor and zeroed in on the farm.
“But, it turned out to be 100 precious logs worth Rs.1.5 crore”, says P. Shankar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Palamaner.
This incident also raised eyebrows, as redsanders smuggling is not as regular to the western mandals, as is widely prevalent in the east.
With the culprits changing tack, the Forest Department seriously mulls using intelligence inputs along with trained manpower.
