Tirupati: Task Force foils bid to smuggle 1 crore worth red sanders logs

Tirupati: The red sanders smugglers who on July 12 tried in vain to smuggle logs from Bimavaram forest area of Seshachalam forests again made an abortive bid for smuggling red sanders from the forest area in the city on Wednesday.

However, the alert RSASTF (Red Sanders Anit-Smuggling Task Force) foiled the attempt of the smugglers who managed to escape, leaving behind 30 A grade red sanders logs that were later recovered by the Task Force in the forest area on the edge of the city, just behind the forest department godown.

Task Force in-charge P Ravisankar said that a 20 member gang of Tamil Nadu-based smugglers who managed to sneak into the forest were bringing the logs they cut off in the deep forests for transportation to other states.

Acting on the information from forest officer Nataraja on the movement of smugglers in Mangalam forest area, who he suspected were readying for transportation of logs, Task Force teams led by ASI Vasu and DRO Narasimha Rao took up an intense combing in the forest area near the city. When they went up to 2 km in the forest, they found the smugglers coming down carrying the logs on their heads.

The smugglers in order to escape from the task force threw away the logs and ran back into the forest.

Ravisankar said that the logs that were seized later in the search were found to be A grade high quality which has huge demand in the international market and values more than Rs one crore.