Kadapa police recovered a huge haul of red-sander logs and arrested twelve smugglers, including notorious inter-state criminal S. Fakruddin, who hails from Khadarpalli in Chapadu mandal with a criminal background in red-sanders smuggling. He had once been to jail after getting arrested under the PD Act.

Fakruddin was instrumental in bringing workers from Tamil Nadu on tree-felling work and chopping huge quantities of the precious logs in Rayachoti, Chennur, Guvvalacheruvu, Lakkireddipalle and Siddhavatam forest areas of the district.

He used to transport the logs to Chennai as well as Katigenahalli, the red-sanders smuggling den near Bengaluru.

“As he remained out of bounds for the department in the recent past, we formed special teams to trace him”, explained Superintendent of Police K.K.N. Anburajan at a media conference here on Sunday.

The team led by Additional Superintendent of Police (Operations) M. Devaprasad lay in wait near the village, when the criminal was sighted ferrying five red-sander logs in a car, with his accomplice Shaik Latif proceeding ahead on a two-wheeler as a pilot.

The cops seized both the vehicles and recovered the logs. Based on the information provided by him, several logs were also seized from Vontimitta and Chennur police limits. In all, 20 logs weighing 549 tonnes were seized from their possession.

The arrested woodcutters were identified as Muthuswami, Salem Ramar, K. Dhanasekhar, L. Madhaiyan, L. Pandian, Chinnathambi Annamalai, P. Muthuswami, R. Moorthi, R. Madiyathun, P. Senthil and Raj Kumar hailing from Salem district in Tamil Nadu.