TURA: North Garo Hills police raided the residence of the secretary of the FKJGP on Monday to arrest him in a case of forgery after a police complaint was lodged against the accused by the Forest department of the GHADC.
The district council forester filed an FIR at Mendipather police station on September 24 against Dominic Sangma of Babukona locality who is accused of forging a transit passbook to transport timber from Garo Hills.
The forest officials of the district council had swung into action and managed to seize the forged transit passbook which was handed over to the police.
When police raided his house on Monday they failed to find Sangma but recovered some more fake transit passbooks.
There have been widespread allegations of illegal timber trade taking place for a long time with many groups and individuals being involved.
Illegal felling of trees from the reserve forests of East Garo Hills and their subsequent transportation into neighbouring Assam have allegedly been taking place for the last many months.
The timber smugglers in connivance with certain groups are alleged to be smuggling the forest produce in the dead of night through the Songsak-Dainadubi-Dudhnoi route as well as the Samanda-Jengjal-Paikan route.
Timber from Garo Hills is in high demand in neighbouring Assam and is said to be exported as far away as West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the national capital region (NCR) of Delhi.
