Sander wood smugglers have Chinese link, claims police

[Sir john]

The police has claimed that the suspects behind smuggling of red sander wood have a Chinese connection. Call details of their mobile phones led to this revelation. The Lahaul-Spiti police today dispatched two teams, one to Delhi and the other within the state, to arrest more suspects wanted in the case. It is trying to verify the confession made by two truck drivers and a resident of Chango in Kinnaur about their links and others involved in the illegal act. According to sources, since the wood was being sent to Tibet illegally, the police managed to get information about the links that the suspects had with a few persons in China to whom the supply was being sent. It is reliably learnt that phone call details of a few officers posted in the border area of Samdon and Lepcha are also being examined. “Even though the arrested persons claimed that they had entered the trade for the first time, we will still look into all possibilities to ascertain if they had managed to send the precious wood across the border in the past,†said SR Rana, Superintendent of Police (Lahaul-Spiti). Senior police officials here do not rule out the possibility of alleged involvement of security forces deputed on the border as they are the ones who had issued them passes for entering the no man’s land. They contest that though permits issued to the two trucks by the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were valid, nobody bothered to check if they were ferrying labourers or sander wood. The valuable red sander wood was transported and stored at Shego village on the outskirts of Kaza since May. However, passes issued by the ITBP manning the Indo-China border were for ferrying about 30 labourers for road construction work in Lepcha. During interrogation it was revealed that the wood was to be carried on mules from Lepcha to Churap village in Tibet on the Chinese side. Trade route between India and China is via Shipkila and carrying of goods from the Lepcha sector is illegal. The wood, valued at over Rs 6 crore, is a rare species and there is a complete ban on its export. It is mostly found in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and is smuggled out of India from the North Eastern border. It is in great demand for use in pharmaceutical industry in China and for making musical instruments in Japan.