From a Correspondent
Tezpur, Nov 26: In its aim to speed up the drive against illegal saw mills, the forest department, in a joint operation with Chariduar Police, continued action against offenders and maged to seize a saw mill at Khamuk under Chariduar Police Station in Sonitpur district on Saturday.
According to sources, a team of the forest department and Chariduar Police carried out a drive following several allegations of illegal saw mill at Khamukh. During the drive, it was observed that the saw mill was illegally functioning without a valid license. The saw mill was dismantled and machinery was seized, including timber worth lakhs of rupees. However, police failed to book the owner of the saw mill.
Timber mafia is carrying out illegal felling of trees in Balipara Reserve Forest area and in meri tiol Park since a long time due to ‘slackness’ of the department concerned. In another successful drive, a team of Sonitpur West Forest Division was able to seize a large number of timber logs worth several lakhs on Saturday night here at Bihiyagaon area of Panchmile under Tezpur Police station in Sonitpur district. The cases of seizing illegal timber, mining sand, chips, and boulders by police and Forest Department exposes the large-scale illegal logging. Almost all of the timber logs from various reserve forest areas in Sonitpur district are transported to other States.
Reacting to the situation, Padma Hazarika, MLA of Sootia LAC, apprised of it to the Chief Minister and sought his persol intervention to save the forests from illegal logging.