Chittoor police in the early hours of Monday detected a huge dump of red sander logs in Chennai. A special party rushed to Chennai on Sunday night to seize the godown at an unspecified location.
Superintendent of Police G. Srinivas and Additional SP (red sander operations) V. Ratna have confirmed detection of a 10-tonne dump. The officials, however, did not mention about any arrests, seizures or exact location of the dump in Chennai.
In the evening, the ASP told The Hindu that the godown operators in Chennai, where the logs were detected, had claimed that they had valid permission to stock the logs and that their trade was legal. “Our personnel there are overseeing further procedures like verification of documents if any. We have not yet taken anyone into custody”, the official said.
Going by the international market price among the smuggling network, the dump could be worth nearly Rs 20 Crore.
The Chittoor task force had led inter-state raids in Chennai twice earlier and succeed in partial seizure of dumps. It is believed that the present operation was based on the revelation of one Selvaraj of Chennai, considered a notorious red sander smuggler with a case under PD (preventive detection) Act on him.
