After the crackdown: The red sanders smuggler’s new, longer route from Andhra to Chennai port

The Andhra Pradesh Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force, which was set up in November 2014 with its base at Tirupati, claims to have curbed wood felling and smuggling to some extent in the last two years in Chittoor and Nellore districts, but has noted that smugglers have shifted base to Kadapa.

At a meeting of top forest officers at Amaravati on January 28, principal chief conservator of forests P Mallikarjuna Rao asked for two new checkposts to be set up-one on the Tadipatri-Muddanur road and the other on Pulivendual-Kadiri road near the Kadapa-Anantapur district border. “Action should be taken for blocking the passage of smuggled material through the areas of Chittoor (West) and Anantapur divisions; 165 entry/exit points and 198 loading points identified by RSASTF have to be monitored on a daily basis by the forest staff,’’ the PCCF directed.

While cutting red sanders trees in Kadapa is not new, it is said to have become rampant in the two years. “It is easier to escape with the logs from Chittoor or Nellore across the border to Tamil Nadu which is nearby. From Kadapa, it takes a long time and they have take a circuitious route but as the task force has intensified checking and raids, the smugglers have shifted to Kadapa,’’ an official said.

The discovery of the bodies of five suspected woodcutters from Tamil Nadu last week in the Vontimitta lake on the outskirts of Kadapa has given rise to a suspicion that smugglers and woodcutters are now using the Kadapa corridor more freely than before. Sources in Kadapa police said the five suspected woodcutters may have panicked after their vehicle was stopped at a check point by Red Sanders Task Force on the night of February 17 and jumped into the Vontimitta lake in a bid to escape, and drowned.

Police say smugglers are targeting the red sandalwood forests in the Palakonda hills of Kadapa and Anantapur districts.

The task force recently started patrolling and checking in Kadapa district, especially on the Kadapa-Renigunta-Chennai NH 716.

“Illegal felling of red sanders in Kadapa forests was going on earlier also, but it has increased recently as we have tightened the grip on the Tirupati side in the Seshachalam forests,” said task force IG M Kantha Rao.

Police say smugglers bring woodcutters in the guise of construction labourers and put them up at cheap lodges in Kadapa. They are then taken into the forests in groups where they fell the trees for five-ten days and deliver the logs to the smugglers. “We suspect that these logs are now being transported from Kadapa via Bengaluru rather than via Tamil Nadu which was the case earlier,’’ M Kantha Rao said.

Whether the logs are smuggled from Chittoor and Nellore or from Kadapa via Bengaluru, they are ending up at Chennai or Tuticorin port. In 2016-17, the Chennai Zonal Unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized 50,000 tonnes of red sanders. In one major seizure, on November 17, 40 tonnes red sanders was seized from a godown on the Chennai-Bengaluru highway by the DRI. The consignment came from Kadapa via Bengaluru.

In January, Renigunta urban police arrested a Chinese national, Zhang Jianlin, whom police described as a smuggler and agent for China-based smugglers. Jianlin, hailing from Xin Xiang City of Henan Province, was working out of Bengaluru, where he had set up an alleged front as a prawn feed importer and supplier. He was arrested along with nine others, allegedly while ferrying 24 red sanders logs in three vehicles. Police say that Jianlin is one of the many agents operating from Bengaluru, bringing woodcutters from Tamil Nadu into the forests of Kadapa.

“About 70% of the forest in Kadapa is red sanders. Smugglers and woodcutters coming from Tamil Nadu are now avoiding the Kuppam-Chittoor-Tirupati route and have started using the Chittoor-Kadapa route and targeting the forests there. They also come via Bengaluru,’’ an official said.

Faced with the risk of capture, or in some cases getting shot at, woodcutters who risk felling red sanders trees are said to have increased their rates from Rs 3,000 per day earlier to Rs 5,000-7,000 per day now. This reportedly happened after 20 alleged red sanders woodcutters were shot dead by Andhra police on April 7, 2015, in an alleged fake encounter in Seshachalam forest near Tirupati.

“The labourers camp in forests for several days, felling the trees, stripping the bark and carrying the logs to a point on the periphery of the forest identified by the smuggler or agent for further transport. They are paid handsomely by the smugglers and agents,’’ an official said. Apart from routine checking, anti-smuggling task force teams will be deployed in Kadapa and Anantapur districts to conduct raids and combing operations, police said.