Huge quantity of illegal sawn timber seized from 8 trucks in Byrnihat

TURA: Several hundred numbers of freshly sawn timber from the forests of Meghalaya that had been stacked inside eight trucks and were being illegally transported to neighbouring Assam has been seized by Ri-Bhoi police in Byrnihat on Saturday.
The seizure was made after police received a tip-off about it’s transportation being made in eight commercial trucks bearing Assam registration number plates.
“We received source information about the movement of the timber and detained eight trucks outside our Outpost without any documents in Byrnihat,” said Superintendent of Police in-charge J F K Marak while speaking to The Shillong Times.
The transporters had reportedly also tried to furnish some documents which were found to be allegedly forged.
The timber, stacked in each truck well above 10 feet in height, were tightly concealed with plastic and polythene tents.
The consignment is said to be worth several lakhs of rupees in the open market.
Those transporting the illegal consignment told police that the pine sawn timber were destined for Jorhat, Kokrajhar, Hojai, Dhubri, Kanpur and Sonitpur, places where timber are in huge demand from consumers.
The timber is believed to have come from the forests of neighbouring East and West Khasi Hills districts and were being clandestinely shipped taking advantage of the recent movement of the coal transportation from the state.