The Puttur sub-division police on Thursday nabbed five red sanders smuggling operatives and seized logs worth ₹10 lakh, besides an SUV and two motorbikes at Jambukesapuram village nestled at the foothills of Nagalapuram hillocks, 40 km from Puttur.
Deputy SP (Puttur) T.D. Yashwant told the media that a police party was conducting vehicle checks at Vajravari Kandriga village on the Chennai NH in the morning when they intercepted an SUV on its way to Chennai. The occupants of the car tried to flee but the police managed to nab one of them. Acting on the information from him, the police rushed to a forest fringe location near Jambukesapuram and caught four persons while they were readying a dump of red sanders logs for transport. As many as 35 logs were seized from two separate dumps on the village outskirts.
Three of the accused, in the age group of 22-29, are natives of Pitchatur and Nagalapuram mandals, while two others aged 49 and 32 belonged to Vaniyambadi town of Vellore district in Tamil Nadu.
They were produced before the designated court and sent in remand.
The DSP said that a special party was formed to conduct searches in the forest fringe areas to detect dumps of red sanders logs.
The police personnel from Nagalapuram, Satyavedu, and Pitchatur stations took part in the raids.
