Nine held for trading spurious cotton seeds in Mancherial

As many as 14.16 quintals of spurious cotton seeds, a car, a motorcycle and weighing machine were seized from them and the value of seeds was assessed at Rs 41 lakh

Mancherial: Sleuths of Ramagundam Commissionerate’s Task Force on Wednesday arrested nine persons belonging to four gangs for allegedly trading in spurious cotton seeds in different parts of the district.

As many as 14.16 quintals of spurious cotton seeds, a car, a motorcycle and weighing machine were seized from them and the value of seeds was assessed at Rs 41 lakh. Six more traders are absconding.

Briefing the media about the arrests here, Ramagundam Commissioner of Police V Satyanarayana said the accused were Lokandi Swamy and Lokandi Bikshapathi, residents of Buruguguda village in Asifabad mandal, Parupalli Raju and Edunuri Sadanandam of Ramakrishnapur in Mandamarri, Boyapati Anil Kumar and Dasari Surender from Tandur, Appani Pradeep, Boge Vishal belonging to Mancherial and Isthari, a native of Vemanapalli.

The nine were detained during simultaneous raids carried out by the sleuths on houses following a tip off. Gorantla Suresh Babu, Bheemavaram of Prakasham, Bhukya Vignesh from Koutala, Dasari Elamanda from Tandur mandal, Hanumantha, Bakireddy and Laxminarayana belonging to Kurnool are still at large.

During the course of interrogations, the nine confessed to trading in adulterated and banned seeds in several parts of Mancherial district. They admitted that they were smuggling the seeds from Andhra Pradesh under the pretext of groceries. They revealed that they were secretly storing the seeds in rural areas, and gullible farmers were their targets, citing higher yield.

The Commissioner cautioned that the police were focusing on curbing the menace of the spurious seeds. He stated that movement of traders was being tracked and a list of 50 notorious offenders has already been prepared. He warned that PD Act would be invoked against the traders. He recalled that Bellampalli police seized spurious seeds worth Rs 25 lakh on May 23 last.

Mancherial DCP K Uday Kumar Reddy, Jaipur ACP Narender and his counterpart from Bellampalli Rahman, Mancherial Agriculture Officer Veeraiah and Task Force Inspector Kiran Kumar were present.

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