Nalgonda: Fake seeds worth 6 crore seized, 13 held
District SP AV Ranganath along with top cops Stephen Ravindra and Shiva Shankar Reddy, briefing the media about spurious seeds racket at a press meet at DPO office in Nalgonda on Friday
Nalgonda: The district police have arrested a 13-member inter-State gang for manufacturing and selling fake cotton seeds, paddy, maize and vegetable seeds and seized fake seeds worth Rs 6 crore seeds from their possession, informed West Zone IG Stephen Ravindra and Hyderabad Range IG Shiva Shankar Reddy.
As per the aspirations of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and directions of Agriculture Minister Niranjan Reddy and DGP Mahender Reddy, the district police have successfully seized fake seeds.
District SP AV Ranganath and district agriculture officer Sridhar Reddy briefed the media about the gang that was selling fake seeds, at a press meet at DPO office here on Friday. According to SP Ranganath, a few farmers from Devarakonda in the district gave information about fake seeds to the police. Nalgonda task conducted an in-depth investigation into the scam for the past 15 days.
Among the 13 arrested, Karnati Madhusudan Reddy of Nandyal of Andhra Pradesh was the kingpin in fake seeds scam. Madhusudan Reddy was earlier arrested in various districts of Telugu States and arrested by Nalgonda police last year in a fake cotton seed case and was imprisoned in Warangal jail under PD Act. But he didn't change his fraudulent ways after releasing from the jail on bail.
To make huge money by selling fake cotton seeds to seed processing companies and by selling fake seeds in various districts of Telangana, Madhusudan Reddy chalked out a plan along with Peddireddy of Khammam; Balaswamy of Chandur; Pitchaiah of Devarakonda in Nalgonda district; Srinivas Reddy and Pavan of Hyderabad.
Acting over a tip off, CIs Balagopal and SM Basha, Chandoor CI Suresh Kumar, Nalgonda Rural SI Rajasekhar Reddy, Shaligouraram CI PND Prasad, Thipparthi SI Satyanarayana, Chityala SI Nagaraj, SI Nagul Meera, along task force, exposed the whole affair of fake seeds.
Police held search in Gajwel of Siddipet district, Gadwal and Jadcharla in Mahbubnagar, Gundla Pochampally, Yallampeta, Devar Yanjal and Bowenpally in Hyderabad and Medchal districts, Allagadda and Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh and other areas and seized 20 tonnes of fake cotton seeds, 40 tonnes of fake maize seeds and four quintals of fake vegetable seeds from the arrested.
Fake cotton seeds were seized and shifted to Nalgonda while fake paddy, maize and vegetable seeds were sealed and kept in Agritech godowns, he added.