Nellore: Chittoor police have arrested a five-member inter-state gang involved in red sanders smuggling and recovered 320 logs apart from four vehicles, all worth Rs 3 crore, during raids since last one week in different parts of Chittoor district and also at Katiganahalli in Karnataka. The team, with the help of Karnataka police recovered a red sanders dump belonging to notorious smuggler Fasiuddeen alias Fassi at Giddappanahalli in Karnataka.
According to Chittoor SP G. Srinivas, a taskforce team from Chittoor held Sayyed Mubarak and Irfan at the bus stop in Katigana-halli village, Bengaluru rural district on March 8. The duo spilled the beans when the team grilled them about the five-member gang and this helped police to carryout raids under Pak-ala and Kallur police station limits in Chittoor district and apprehend the five-member gang on Tuesday night. Three of the accused have been identified as Jameer Khan alias Ghouse Khan 26, Adil Sheriff 27 and Shaik Mubarak, 26, of Katigan-ahalli were held during raids in Kallur police station limits.
The other two, Thousiulla Khan of Ashok Nagar in Bengaluru district and Mohammad Yusuf 27 alias Sultan of Mulur town in Kolar district, have been arrested in Pakala police station limits. According to the SP, Jam-eer Khan has studied up to Class X and he entered into red sander smuggling in 2014. He is maintaining an inter-state gang and acting as commission agent for red sanders. His gang has smuggled logs 25 times through different routes so far and there are 12 cases against him.
Adil Sheriff has studied up to Class IV and he was working in a mechanic shed. He supplies vehicles for illegal transportation of logs since 2014. Shaik Mubarak and Mohmmad Yusuf were also into smuggling field since 2014 and they play the role of drivers for the vehicles carrying logs. Thousiulla Khan is inter-state smuggler and studied up to Class X. He was working in Raj Tours before he entered the field in 2014. Pix: 00182: Chitoor SP G. Srinivas and OSD Rathna are seen inspecting the red sander logs, which were seized during an operation by task force at Katiganahalli in Karnataka, at Chittoor on Wednesday.
