In a major breakthrough, the Forest department of Assam’s Cachar district has seized a huge consignment of illegal teak wood worth 20 lakh.
The consignment of teak wood was seized in the early morning on Wednesday en route from Mizoram to other parts of India.
Following a tip-off, the Divisional Forest Office of Cachar, headed by Sunny Deo Choudhury, laid a trap in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
The team was able to seize three trucks laden with teak wood (chegun) at Nutan Bazaar under Dhalai of Cachar district, a constituency which is represented by the forest minister of Assam, Parimal Suklabaidya.
All of the trucks were coming from the state of Mizoram and were heading for Guwahati when they were seized at Nutan Bazaar.
Initially, other than the handyman of one truck, all other drivers managed to escape.
But getting a track of their phone calls from the nabbed handyman, all the four other drivers were rounded up, said Cachr DFO Sunny Deo Choudhury for further interrogation.
Talking to Northeast Now at his official chamber in Silchar on Wednesday evening, Choudhury said, “We have inputs of more trucks waiting to enter our border.”
“We have laid a trap and are hopeful to catch hold of many other such trucks which are plying on our territory without any transit permit or valid documents to pass by,” he added.
Choudhury also said, “All the four drivers would be produced before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) today.”
“We will keep our investigations on to find out more of the modus operandi and their way of functioning in smuggling of teakwood,” the forest official said.
The DFO further said, “It is time to dig deep into the root cause of this crime.”
“At a time when we are campaigning hard for more plantation drive in the whole of Barak valley, a few others are hell bent to make merry by ‘cutting’ these trees, obviously, illegally,” he added.