Hyderabad: Twenty alleged sandalwood smugglers were killed in an encounter with police in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, 450 kms south of Hyderabad on Tuesday morning.
Kanta Rao DIG Special Task Force confirmed the incident. “There were two incidents at different place in Sheshachalam forest in Chandragiri mandal where the smugglers attacked the forest and police department personnel. Police opened fire in self defence killing 20 smugglers”, he said.
Chittoor is one of the districts of Andhra Pradesh where smuggling of sandal wood is rampant causing massive loss of revenue to the state government. The smugglers, most of them from neighbouring Tamil Nadu, were active in the forest areas illegally cutting the trees and smuggling the wood abroad.
Giving details of the incident, Rao told the media that the police launched combing operation in the forest area last night on receiving information that nearly 200 smugglers were cutting down the sandal wood trees.
“During the search operations the smugglers attacked the special task force and the forest department personnel with axes, knives and stones forcing the police to open fire in self defence”, he said,
Nine smugglers were killed at Eetagunta and 11 at Pachinodu, he said.
State home minister Nimmakayala Chinarajappa said that those killed include two international smugglers. “The police is continuing the search for the smugglers who escaped”.
In Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh director general of police JV Ramudu reviewed the incident of killing of smugglers with the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
While the AP police was touting the killing of 20 smugglers a big success in the drive against illegal timber trade, the incident evoked a strong outcry from Tamil Nadu government.
Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has written a letter to his AP counterpart Chandrababu Naidu demanding an independent inquiry into the nature of incidents and how the people were killed.
Interestingly, a similar demand was also raised by the AP state Congress president N Raghuveera Reddy. He said that the party will approach the State Human Rights Commission to seek a probe in to the incident.
Panneerselvam expressed is concern over such a high casualty rate. Another prominent TN politician and MDMK Party president Vaiko said, “while police have every right to arrest and prosecute offenders, shooting them dead like birds is unacceptable”.
Chittoor district has witnessed many such incidents in the past in which alleged sandalwood smugglers were killed by the police. Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Forum General Secretary VS Krishna alleged that many such incidents turned out to be one-sided firing by the police and not an encounter.
In view of the rampant smuggling of red sanders, which had good demand in the foreign markets, Chandrababu Naidu government after taking charge last year had formed a task force to combat the menace. An auction of the seized red sanders by the state government last year fetched Rs10 billion (Dh590 million).
