32 suspected woodcutters from TN held in Tirupati

A group of 32 men from Tamil Nadu, suspected to be red sander woodcutters, have been arrested near here, police said today.
They were arrested in a joint operation by police and Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Taskforce personnel at Venkatapuram near Renigunta in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh yesterday when the group was "about to venture" into deep forest of Seshachalam for cutting red sanders, they said.
Renigunta Deputy Superintendent of Police K S Nanjudappa said 28 of the arrested persons were from Tiruvannamalai and others from Vellore and Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu.
They were produced before a court here today and remanded to judicial custody.

A total of 22 mobile phones, 21 axes and 10 bags of rice were seized from their possession, the DySP said.
The task force personnel have been cracking down on illegal felling of the red sanders, which is in demand in East Asian nations, for making furniture, musical instruments and traditional medicines, in the Seshachalam forests.
In October last year, acting on a tip-off, police and the STF personnel had arrested 89 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu when they were on their way to cut red sanders wood.
Twenty red sanders woodcutters were killed in an alleged encounter with police in the Seshachalam hills in Chittoor District in April last year.