A four-member group of woodcutters were returning from the Seshachalam hills after dumping the dressed red sanders logs into a truck bound for Chennai, when the combing party of the Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) accosted them at Karakambadi beat at the foothills on Thursday noon.
K. Ramaswamy, 56, K. Govindaswamy, 52, K. Doraswamy, 54, and K. Sethu, 35 - all from Tirupattur of Vellore district of TN - initially claimed that they were pilgrims on their way to Tirumala, but fresh swelling and old scars on their shoulders (due to carrying of logs with heavy weights over rough terrain) revealed that they were just exiting from the forests. The four are a group of friends first though also distantly related to each other.
The aging smuggling operatives assured the gun-wielding combing personnel that they no longer held any strength to run away from them. "We took food 24 hours ago. Please give us some food first, we will tell you everything. We were about to go on the second trip, but withdrew due to exhaustion and angry sun (@43 degrees)," Ramaswamy said.
After having sumptuous lunch at the Task Force police station at Kapilatheertham in Tirupati, Ramaswamy said that he was the father of two daughters studying Intermediate and two sons, studying Medical Lab Technician course and IX Class respectively. Doraswamy and Govindaswamy also have sons and daughters, currently studying. Sethu, also a traditional woodcutter, would mostly run errands to serve as an assistant to his aging friends.
Ramaswamy said that his children were brilliant students. Though he and his group were into the felling of red sanders in Seshachalam hills of both Chittoor and Kadapa since a decade, they kept taking periodical breaks, particularly after the murder of two forest officials in 2013, and killing of 20 woodcutters in April 2015.
"Though our family is adaptive to hand-to-mouth living thanks to our (TN) government's welfare schemes, as a father I found it difficult to assist my children's studies. I confess, I got lured by maistries (labour suppliers), but only to see my children prosper with studies. Before I could realize it's a vicious circle, my children grew up and I must continue to finance their studies. Aging, we apply dye to our hair because no smuggler will provide job to an oldie," he said.
A wet-eyed Ramaswamy, with symptoms of high fever, said that his son Aravind (an MLT student) got ready to accompany him to the Seshachalam hills, he undertook an oath from the young man that he would just study and never become a woodcutter. "My grown-up daughters too are a worried lot each time I leave the house, with their cries of Appa, Appa," the aging father said, adding "only Perumal (God) knows what is in store for them".
Being friends, Doraswamy and Govindaswamy also made their sons execute a promise that they would never wield axes, but only books.
Task Force Inspector G. Ashok Kumar told The Hindu that all the accused had furnished their correct whereabouts and details of their families was also verified. They were booked under Sec 109 and 41 of the Cr.PC and were let off on executing relevant bonds.
