Tirupati: The ongoing trial of 346 red sanders smugglers and woodcutters allegedly involved in the brutal double murder of two forest officials N.R. Sridhar and David Karunakar in Seshachalam forests in December last year has put the cops in a spot of bother.
Tirupati urban police wing, which undertook extensive combing operations after the brutal killings inside the Seshachalam forests, arrested as many as 356 smugglers and woodcutters for murder, dacoity and other offences.
Of the 356, four of them are juveniles and one smuggler died due to illness in jail. Police filed charge-sheets against the remaining 346 accused and shifted them to Kadapa and Nellore prisons besides the jails within Chittoor district.
According to Renigunta DSP B. Srinivas, while the 346 accused were produced before an open court held at the Tarakarama Cricket Stadium in July, they were again produced before the magistrate at the Tirupati court in August.
Now even as the trial continues, the cops are already feeling the heat with the ‘transit’ and other arr-angements, not only proving to be a costly affair but also owing to amount of ri-sk and other factors inv-olved. For transporting them police are arranging close to 15 buses besides engaging around 500-odd cops for court assignment.
Now taking all these factors into consideration besides the other problems arising in terms of producing such a huge number of under-trials in the court hall, Renigunta police led by DSP B. Srinivas is mulling to file a memo-requesting for the nod of the Tirupati court for undertaking further trial through video conference on Monday.
The DSP added, “Once we get the nod, we would create the required set-up for the trail of 346 prisoners without having to physically shift them from the respective prisons.”
