12 red sander smugglers arrested, 49 logs seized

Ananthapur: In a major breakthrough, the YSR district police on Sunday arrested 16 red sanders smugglers and seized 49 red sanders logs weighing about 1 tonne from the forest area in Bramhamgari matham police station limits.

The arrests and seizures followed a hot chase of the gang on the Badvel-Mydukur NH 67 road. “The smugglers tried to flee but the police teams chased and caught the smugglers along with their vehicles,” SP Anburajan told the media.

He said that 12 of the 16 arrested belonged to Tamil Nadu and the other four were natives of Annamayya and YSR districts. The gang was waylaid while they were carrying trunks of the axed red sander trees in a truck.

Additional SP (admin) Tushar Dudi, faction zone DSP Chenchu babu and Mydukur DSP Vamsidhar Goud along with his team were part of the action team of the district police.