Special Operations Team raids illegal cotton unit, seizes 1.5 tons of seeds

Hyderabad: The Special Operations Team (SOT) of LB Nagar along with Hayath Nagar police and agriculture department raided a spurious cotton seed manufacturing unit in Bacharam village on the city outskirts and seized 1.5 tons of seeds worth Rs 22 lakh. The arrested ones were identified as, Devender Reddy, Sagar Reddy and Venkat Reddy, while the founder of Akshara Seeds, Praveen Kumar, his wife Padmavati and their associate Ramesh are absconding.

According to SOT, the main accused Praveen Kumar, his wife and Devender Reddy started the business three years ago and they obtained the licence on Padmavati's name to sell vegetable seeds as they were supported by other accused who acted as marketing agents.

However, starting this year, the team hatched a conspiracy to sell the spurious cotton seeds rather than vegetable seeds just to make more profits.

They started selling it by using multiple brand names despite not having any valid licence to sell the cotton seeds. But they still managed to procure loose cotton seeds and other equipment related to it and sold it to farmers, said the police.