Twenty Red Sanders smugglers/cutters were shot dead by Special Task Force officials in the wee hours on Tuesday in the Chandragiri mandal of Chittoor district of Seshachalam forest range.
The encounter between the smugglers and police took place in two separate locations in the morning when they were spotted in the forest area. While 11 members were shot dead at one location, nine others were killed at another place deep in the forest tracts.
The joint operation was conducted by Redsanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force and Forest Department.
According to task force members, when more than 100 of them were spotted, they began pelting stones and attacked them with sickles. Thereafter, the force had to resort to shoot out leading to their death.
Following the development, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu held an emergency review meeting with the Director General of Police JV Ramudu and directed that the bodies of slain members should be handed over to the members of their families after post-mortem.
The Government had constituted a task force to curb illegal felling of Red Sanders and its smuggling.
The wood is in great demand in Far Eastern countries in particular.
Lately, the State Government has taken permission from the Centre to sell the confiscated wood through international bidding process and has managed to conduct couple of auctions.
According to RP Thakur, Additional Director General of Police, the encounter took place when the police confronted the smugglers from Tamil Nadu. They come in big numbers to fell trees and then take them away. Many others are stated to have escaped.
Detailed enquiry Following the news about the encounter where 20 people were dead, there has been concern from several quarters. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam wanted his counterpart Naidu to ensure a detailed enquiry conducted expeditiously and responsibility fixed for violation of human rights. With most of the smugglers stated to be from the neighbouring districts across the border, several senior leaders in Tamil Nadu have voiced concern about the way the issue was handled here.
PTI reports
The DMK, BJP, PMK and the CPI claimed that poor labourers from the state were among the victims and asked the Andhra Pradesh government to “pursue lawful means” to check red sanders smuggling.
Claiming that they were innocent labourers from Tamil Nadu who were lured with higher wages to forests in neighbouring Chittoor, NDA ally, PMK chief Ramadoss said their being shot down without even an inquiry was unacceptable.
Dismissing claims of Andhra Pradesh police that they opened fire in self-defence, he said “it was a plain lie” and demanded a probe by a sitting judge of Supreme Court.
DMK chief Karunanidhi, said, governments of both the states should announce relief to the families of the labourers killed.
“We are in touch with our counterparts in Andhra Pradesh. We are verifying if 12 of those killed were labourers from Thiruvannamalai and Vellore Districts,” a top Tamil Nadu police official told PTI.