Hanumakonda: In two separate incidents, the police arrested seven members from two gangs involved in selling expired pesticides and counterfeit seeds under the names of reputed companies, targeting unsuspecting farmers. The arrests were made jointly on Friday by the task force along with the Parkal and Geesugonda police.

From both gangs, the police seized expired and fake pesticides valued at approximately ₹63.62 lakh, 166 kg counterfeit seeds, 800 litres of herbicide, materials used to manufacture fake pesticides, and seven mobile phones.

The arrested persons are: Jayadeep Gowtham (33) of Medchal-Malkajgiri (Hyderabad), Muddangula Aditya (32) of Mehdipatnam (Hyderabad), Machaboyina Tirupati (35) of Nagaram village, Parkal mandal, Annam Kumaraswamy (42) of Papayyapalli-Chelpur village, Mulugu-Manpur mandal, Beri Reddy Marri Reddy (42) of Elkathurthy Haveli, Geesugonda mandal, Warangal district, Tummagundla Sandeep Reddy (37), Tummagundla Vijay Joseph (36), both of Sangareddy district. At a press conference here Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Singh provided details of the arrests. He said based on solid information, the task force and the Parkal police, along with agriculture department officials raided the house of the prime accused, Tirupati, in Nagaram and seized fake and expired pesticides. On interrogation, he revealed information that led the police to a warehouse in Mehdipatnam, where fake pesticides worth ₹57.44 lakh were found. Jayadeep Gowtham, Aditya, and Kumaraswamy were arrested from this location.

In a separate case, acting on a tip-off, the Geesugonda police raided the house of Marri Reddy in Elkathurthy Haveli and seized one kg fake seeds. Further investigation led to the houses of Sandeep Reddy and Vijay Joseph in Chintalachervu village, Sangareddy district, where 166 kg fake seeds and 800 litres of herbicide worth ₹6.18 lakh were recovered. Singh commended the efforts of Task Force ACP Madhusudhan, Parkal ACP Satish Babu, inspectors Babulal, Sarlraju, Ranjith, Kranthi Kumar, agricultural officer Salman Pasha, and the SI teams and personnel from various police stations involved in the operation.