Six red sanders smugglers held

Tirupati: Stepping up the drive against red sanders smuggling, Tirupati urban police arrested six smugglers near Madhavaram in Chennai leading to the seizure of about three tonnes of red sanders logs, chips, powder and beads from two godowns, on February 8.

A team of Tirupati Urban MR Palli police based on a tip-off from the nine smugglers who were arrested near Lakshmipuram Cheruvu on February 5, raided a place near a hotel on Madhavaram-Manali high way in Chennai city on Wednesday (February 8) resulting in the arrest of R Venkatachalam, who managed to escape from the police (on February 5) at Lakshmipuram.

The arrest of Venkatachalm led the police to nab five more smugglers including SB Haranadhan and four of his gang members.

Even though, police, customs and other agencies were intensifying their operations against smuggling, but smugglers were finding number of new ways to evade them.

The red sanders logs were powdered and balled, chopped into small chips and made as beads which were easy to smuggle instead of huge red sanders logs.

It may be recalled that police arrested nine smugglers including Yarlapalli Jithendra the group leader and a resident of Jivakona in the pilgrim city who were arrested near Lakshmipuram Cheruvu on February 5.

Sustained interrogation of Jithendra, a local and other arrested smugglers resulted in the big catch of six smugglers and seizure of three tonnes of logs, powder, chips etc in Chennai on February 8, according to MR Palli police who displayed the seized red sanders material in the police station in the city on Thursday.