TURA: Timber smugglers are using innovative methods such as Sumo carrier vehicles to smuggle their consignment and avoid detection by forest officials in the Garo Hills. One such case was detected in Rongkhon area of Tura when forest officials raided a house on Friday night found a stack full of sawn timber neatly piled up and concealed inside a Tata Sumo vehicle waiting for a potential buyer.
Four persons hailing from Williamnagar were taken into custody for their alleged involvement in illegally felling trees inside the Baija Reserve Forest near Williamnagar town. The four had sawn the wood and brought it in the Sumo vehicle to Tura for sale when they were picked up.
The four apprehended men are Sangkal A Sangma, Mithun D Shira, Greping Sangma and Sengsran R Marak.
Garo Hills has been plagued with illegal felling in most of its reserve forests with arrest and conviction rates extremely low. Most of the illegal felling has been taking place in the forests of east and North Garo Hills districts and smugglers have long been accused of bribing officials to get their consignment across into neighbouring Assam.
