4 red sanders smugglers arrested near Alipiri in Tirupati

Tirupati: It seems the red sanders smugglers have changed the route and tried to transport illegally the logs via Tirumala ghat road. They tried to take advantage of pilgrim rush on the holy hills to smuggle the logs.

On Thursday early morning, a team of Task Force police acting on credibleinformation intercepted an SUV near Alipiri on the first ghat road and arrested four smugglers, besides recovering 13 A grade redsander logs.

It is yet to be known how the smugglers managed to bypass two toll gates while travelling fromhigh security Tirumala on the ghat road and were not noticed on thehills while carrying the logs in the vehicle which was decked up withgreen leaves to appear as a new vehicle. coming from Tirumala afterpooja.

With the Task Force stepping up checking of vehicles at all crowded areas like choultries, bus station, railway stations in Tirupati and on all roads to the famous pilgrim city and also to the cities in neighbouring States of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the smugglers seemed to have changed the route.

The four along with the vehicle and redsander logs were taken to Task Force Police Station located at RSASTF headquarters near Kapilatheertham for further investigation.

The four arrested were identified as Murugesan Jaipal (27), RamalingamArunachalam (30), Bhupal Kandaswamy (27) and Perumal Velu, the driver (35).