With the arrest of two persons on Monday, Rachakonda police claim to have busted an inter-State spurious seeds racket. The officials seized 15 quintals of spurious cotton BT3 seeds, a car and two mobile phones, all worth ₹ 30 lakh from the possession of the accused.
The accused are Mannem Lakshmi Narayana (48), a businessman from Mansoorabad and native of Shantinagar in Jogulamba-Gadwal district and his associate Namburi Srinivasa Rao (50), a farmer from Dharanikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Acting on specific information, the sleuths of the Special Operations Team (LB Nagar Zone) along with officials of the Agricultural department and Vanasthalipuram police conducted a joint raid and nabbed Narayana and Rao, both habitual offenders, at Mansoorabad while they were transporting the spurious cotton seeds in order to sell the same to gullible farmers, police said.
HT cotton seeds are banned by the government and there is no permission to sell them in the market.
