The police department has roped in services of special police parties and installed twelve check posts in vantage routes to check redsanders smuggling in Seshachalam forests, where the activity has been on the rise since the pandemic broke out.
In the last few months, the redsanders smuggling kingpins, operating from beyond the State’s borders, have been trying to expand their footprint in the forest by making good use of the government’s continued focus on enforcing lockdown.
Going by statistics, the police department has slapped P.D. Act on eleven kingpins and pushed behind the bars more than 70 smugglers having nexus with international and national level operatives since COVID broke out. More than 80 cases have been booked, 526 persons arrested and 1,027 logs weighing 25.5 tonnes and 64 vehicles used to smuggle them seized in the said period.
The notorious smugglers who were arrested recently are: Shaik Simpathi Lal Basha and Shaik Jakir of Kadapa, G. Venkatasubbaiah of Badvel, P. Venkatapathy and B. Srinivasulu of Vontimitta, Shaik Mastan and Gundala Sankar of Railway Kodur, Simpathi Fakruddin of Chapadu, Shaik Abdul Hakeem and Rangaswamy Bhaskaran of Chennai, Nanubala Ramudu and M. Srinivasulu Naidu of Mydukur and Chamarthi Amarender Raju of Ramapuram.
Combing the woods is a regular affair for the department in protecting the forest wealth, where the intruders, generally the small-time woodcutters, are arrested. The back office job includes guarding the various porous routes to monitor the vehicles used, snooping on the regular offenders by opening suspect sheets, analysing the call dump to zero in on kingpins and tracking the case history of repeat offenders. “We need the cooperation of inhabitants in the forest-fringe villages for timely alerts on the movement of smugglers,” says Superintendent of Police (Kadapa) K.K.N. Anburajan, who also bets big on former smugglers turning remorseful, owing to regular counselling.
