Tirupati: Three men were shot down while allegedly felling red sanders trees in the deep Seshachalam forest in Tirupati hills by a special combing team of Andhra Pradesh police and forest department early Thursday. The dead men hailed from Tiruvannamalai but their actual identities would become clearer only when someone comes to claim the bodies, said divisional forest officer (Tirupati-wildlife) Srinivas.
He said about 100 woodcutters and smugglers, mostly hired from Tamil Nadu, had been camping in the deep woods of Seshachalam forest range, abundant in red sanders, and had been chopping down the trees and dressing them for transporting downhill.
When the combing team reached the place following a tip-off, the criminals started pelting stones and throwing axes at them. Some of them even attacked the raid team with poison-arrows. “The team members warned those men against continuing the attack but they did not stop. The combing party opened fire in self-defence. Three men were killed”, said the DFO
