Maharashtra police seize 22 tractors of teak wood, 16 held

In a major crackdown on an inter-state racket involved in the smuggling of teak wood and had denuded forests in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, the state forest department has arrested around 16 people and seized tractor loads of wood. Officials from the department said that they would also work on providing alternative livelihoods to members of the community involved in this to prevent them from relapsing into a life in crime.

Ashish Thakre, deputy conservator of forests (DCF), Nanded, said earlier this month, they had raided a village in Nanded taluka, which has a strong presence of refugees from Multan in what is today's Pakistan.

"These people have been involved in smuggling of teak wood from the forests for around 40 to 50 years," he added, stating that in 'Operation Blue Moon-II', which started on the weekend, they had raised houses in the village with the police and seized 22 tractors of teak wood.

A total of 11 people have been arrested so far and the authorities are on the lookout for more, including traders and middlemen who bought and sold the wood. The Marathwada region, in which Nanded district falls, has among the lowest forest cover in Maharashtra."A State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) has been stationed in the village permanently. This village is located around one-and-half kms from the state's border with Telangana and these people move around in huge groups of around 300 to chop trees. They then transport the logs using bullock carts. The SRPF's deployment will prevent this," said Thakre, adding that these illegal logging operations had denuded forests in the vicinity.

Thakre said they planned to provide the villagers alternate livelihood opportunities. "However, those involved in illegal logging will be arrested and prosecuted. We want them to be reformed, but the locals must take the first step for it," he added.

The Maharashtra forest department will also co-ordinate with its counterpart in Telangana to launch joint operations and patrolling for a cross-border approach.

Thakre said similar operations had been conducted in 1998 and 2005. Last year, a similar crackdown had yielded 30 tractor loads of wood.