SHILLONG: The FKJGP Garo Hills Zone has expressed its discontentment over the failure of the Government and the concerned departments in curbing the rampant illegal felling of trees from the forests of Garo Hills and the smuggling of the same to the neighbouring state of Assam by some few smugglers who are allegedly working in cohesion with the local authorities.
FKJGP Garo Hills Zone president Pritam R Marak also said that there are allegations that those timber smugglers enjoy the patronage of the officials from the Forest Department and even the police officials.
According to Marak, despite the Supreme Court ban on inter-state transfer of timbers of specific species such as Sal, Teak, Teetachap etc felling of those trees have been in fact on the rise as per the allegations from different corners of Garo Hills.
He stated that a truck load of timbers was apprehended by the Rongjeng Unit of FKJGP on the month of June and the authorities have been intimated about it in the month of June, the details of the seizure of the illegally smuggled Timbers by the FKJGP Rongjeng Unit in Rongjeng has been covered by the local dailies however within a few days another truck load of illegally smuggled timbers (Sal) was intercepted in Rongram by the volunteers of FKJGP Rongram Unit on June 26 at around 11 pm.
