Smugglers use stolen vehicles

Vehicles worth crores seized

Tirupati: In recent years, there has been much hue and cry over the smuggling of red sanders logs worth crores of rupees but, at the same time, another vehicle theft activity was going on unnoticed. The thieves were stealing hundreds of vehicles including mini trucks, big trucks, jeeps, sumos, ambulances, water tankers as well as high end Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs). The worth of these vehicles in Chittoor district alone in the last few years runs into several crores of rupees, going by the number of vehicles seized during various counter operations against red sanders smuggling.

The smugglers, who mobilise woodcutters from mostly various parts of Tamil Nadu for felling red sanders trees inside the Seshachalam forests, have also been mobilising hundreds of vehicles to smuggle away the precious timber from the forest to a primary location and from there, to other undisclosed locations across the district, other states and across the country. The Tirupati Wildlife Management division alone has seized close to 900 vehicles during various counter operations against red sanders smuggling under its division in the recent past.

According to a senior official of the Forest department, most of the vehicles seized turned out to be with ‘duplicate’ registration numbers and engine and chassis number were not matching with those in the records etc. With most of them turning out to be fake vehicles, hardly anyone has come forward to claim the seized vehicles, which clearly establishes the point that most of the vehicles do not have legitimate owners.

Interestingly, the Road Transport Authority (RTA), the very authority that ensures only legitimate vehicles ply on the roads, especially across the State borders, has not at all got into the ‘Enforcement Act’ to seize such vehicles mobilised by the red sanders smugglers. Meanwhile, other agencies including cops and the Forest department are busy with their specific tasks.