Nellore: Taskforce teams with police officials from Venkatachalam, Chillakur and Nayudupeta seized 40 red sander logs and nabbed nine persons including interstate smugglers during simultaneous raids in the limits of the three mandal police stations on Friday. They also seized three vehicles and 11 mobile phones.
The value of the logs and the vehicles was put at Rs 75 lakh.
According to the Officer on Special Duty Vithaleswar, those arrested include Asif Khan, D. Nageswar Rao Nayak, Katti Edukondalu, Nawaz Sheriff, B. Siva Sankar Thulasi Chinna and Aziz Ahmed from Karnataka. The others are Suresh and Rami Reddy both from Nellore. The gang would axe the trees and in Veligonda forest area and smuggle the logs to Bengaluru.
The gang attempted to run over the police and forest officials in their vehicles when they were asked to stop several times in the past. The taskforce teams had kept a tab on the movement of the smugglers and nabbed them during the joint raids in three areas at the same time. Speaking to media persons at Gudur, Mr Vithaleswar said they have been taking stringent action against the smugglers and preparing an action plan to seize their properties.
He said they have booked 34 cases and held 565 persons besides seizing 16.32 tones of red sander logs worth Rs 16 crore last year. In addition to this, 45 vehicles, Rs 70,000 cash, two guns and a revolver were also seized from the accused. This year, 20 cases were registered and 108 persons arrested, 14 vehicles and 460 logs worth Rs 8.5 crore seized.
