20 woodcutters held, 400 kg red sanders seized

Kadapa: In major breakthrough, police arrested 20 wood cutters, including two interstate smugglers, and recovered 20 red sanders logs weighing 400 kg, a car, an autorickshaw, a motorcycle, 19 axes and 4 gripped stones from theair possession at Mallakatuva check-post in Porumamilla mandal on Friday.

The accused were identified as D Guruprasad of Nagasani Palle village of Khajipet mandal, A Gurappa, S Baskar of Mamillapalle village, G Prasad, of Mahanandi Palle, K Ankaiah, Mudireddypalle, M Tirumalaiah, Mahabubnagar of Kalasapadu mandal in YSR district, G M Ramanaiah of Venkatapuram village, M Lakshmi Naik, M Chinna Venkateswara Naik of Diguvametta Tandra village, K Venkateswara Naik, M Kasi Naik of Velupalle, O Seenu, O Kumar,O Balakhadaraiah of Venkatapuram village, A lakshmaiah of Kistamsettypalle, G Polaiah of Yedavalli village of Giddaluru mandal, D Sreenivasulu of Jonnavaripalle of Bestavaripeta mandal, Prakasam district, K Suresh Kumar and T Sreenivasulu of Rajanagar of Giddaluru town, G Rajkumar of Madhutimmapuram of Mahanandi mandal, Nandyala district.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, superientendent of police KKN Anburajan said that following a tip-off, the police conducted raids on Malakatuva village check post of Porumamilla mandal and arrested the accused while they were loading the red sanders logs on to the vehicles.

The SP warned of attaching the properties of smugglers and also slapping PD Act against them. Additional SP Deva Prasad (Operations), Mydukuru DSP Vamsidhar Gowd, Porumamilla CI Ramesh Babu and others were present.