Forest officers arrested four timber smugglers from inside the Dihing Patkai National Park in upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district on 2nd May as part of a crackdown on illegal timber smuggling.
Babul Nirmoliya, Jikir Orang, Sobhit Sarma, and Tosen Bora, recognized as timber traffickers, were engaged in tree felling in the national park.
Timber smugglers possessed illegally felled timber
Forest inspectors also recovered a considerable amount of illegally felled timber from the smugglers’ possession, as well as various pieces of cutting equipment used by the smugglers.
“Since April 28, we’ve been conducting operations against timber smugglers inside Dihing Patkai National Park. The Tita-Sopa tree had been cut down inside the park by a group of timber smugglers. We were able to apprehend four of them.”
A forest official added, “Several tree cutting equipment and apparatus were also taken from them.”
Timber traffickers are alleged to be operating in the Dehing Patkai districts with the cooperation of some political leaders, according to sources.
“In Arunachal Pradesh, many illegal sawmills have been established. “The elephants were utilized by the timber traffickers to transport the logs from the forest area,” a source stated.
An elephant was killed in Dihing Patkai National Park last year after a shootout between timber smugglers and forest officials.