GUWAHATI: The Assam forest department continues to sustain its tight leash on timber smugglers along the border areas with a team from the Bamunigaon Protection Range recovering twenty pieces of sal and teak tree logs at Pritipur village under Boko Police Station on Tuesday.
The smugglers however managed to escape before the team reached the spot.
Bamunigaon Protection Range officer, Lakheswar Das told the media that his team launched a search operation early morning after receiving information about some smugglers carrying wood logs on handcarts near the Lampara Forest Beat Office.
“We launched a search and seized the wood logs worth abour Rs 2lakh at Pritipur village, but the smugglers escaped,” Das said.
Forest department sources, when asked how the timber smugglers manage to give the forest teams a slip more often than not, said they suspect a network of informers had a strong hand in helping them carry out the act and escape when teams launch a search.
Moreover, there is rampant tree felling despite forest teams regularly patrolling the areas.
On August 21, the Bamunigaon Forest range had recovered thirty three pieces of sal wood logs from a roadside ditch near Satabari-Sampupara road at Satabari in Chaygaon constituency. Despite, a team of forest personnel rushing to the location, the smugglers managed to flee.
On July 30, huge quantities of logs were seized in many places under West Kamrup Division Forest Office.