Hyderabad: 4 held for transporting spurious cotton seeds

Hyderabad: The Special Operations Team (SOT) of LB Nagar, along with Kandukur police and agricultural department on Friday arrested four persons for illegally transporting spurious cotton seeds worth Rs 50 lakhs. The accused were identified as Manyam Laxminarayana, Pinjari Yusif Basha, Mala Dasari Suresh and Vempati Bachi. According to SOT, they received a tip about the illegal transportation of spurious cotton seeds by these men who hatched a conspiracy to sell the seeds to farmers. Upon receiving the information, the cops laid a trap and nabbed the accused on the outskirts of Kandukuru village, RR District.

A total of 39 bags containing around two tons of spurious cotton seed along with a van, seed processing machine, two seed packing machines and 76,700 empty seed packing covers of various brands were seized from their possession, said the Commissioner of Police, Mahesh Bhagwat.

He noted, "The main accused Manyam Laxminarayana, is a native of Jogulamba Gadwal district and a resident of Mansoorabad, Nagole. He had been selling the spurious cotton seed which is banned BT-3 Glicle by establishing a cotton seed processing unit Thapasya Agro Tech, at Laxminagar Colony, Uppal. Moreover he also had licence under Seed Act 1966 to manufacture or sell the cotton seed."

"The accused would procure loose seed from Nandyala town of Kurnool district and after reprocessing the same at his processing unit in Uppal, he packed the spurious seed in different brands of covers which are Lion, Raghu, Kavya, Billa, Arunodaya, Meghana-45, and Pavani etc. With the assistance of other accused, he transported it to different villages and sold it to farmers," explained the officer.