Greater Noida: 500kg of ‘rare’ red sandalwood seized from Kasna

GREATER NOIDA: The district forest officer (DFO) recovered around 500kg of red sandalwood from a warehouse in Kasna industrial area on Saturday night. The raid was conducted in a joint operation with the Delhi Police crime branch that went on for almost four hours.
The DFO said, the department was tipped off by the Delhi Police who had arrested two agents on Friday from Ashram area in Delhi. The arrested persons revealed the information about their warehouse located on plot 81 in Site 5 of Kasna industrial area.

The two arrested men have been identified as Ravindra (27), a resident of Bhiwani district in Haryana, and Neeraj Sehgal who is from Delhi. They allegedly worked as mediators in the illegal business but had told everyone that they worked as scrap dealers.

“After the tip-off, a joint team of crime branch officers and forest department raided the Kasna warehouse and recovered almost 260 woodblocks of rare red sandalwood which weighed around 500 kg. However, crime branch officials alone recovered almost four tonnes of red sandalwood from different other points following the details revealed by the two arrested persons. They were illegally transported from Andhra Pradesh,” said P K Shrivastava, DFO.

The DFO added that red sandalwood is one of the rarest species and Andhra Pradesh is the sole owner of red sandalwood forest in India. It is used in the manufacturing of radiation-proof material such as atomic reactors and has a high demand in the international market where it is sold at almost Rs 4,000 to 5,000 per kg.

“The seized sandalwood will be auctioned only after the court’s trial after which the money will be sent back to Andhra Pradesh government as per the norms under the Forest Act,” Shrivastava added.

Rajeev Singh, a sub-inspector in crime branch, who was also involved in the raid, told TOI that the accused were booked under various provisions of the Forest Act and also under IPC sections 379 (punishment for theft), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), 120 B (whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death).