Mancherial: Nine persons were arrested for allegedly trading in spurious cotton seeds in different parts of the district on Saturday. As many as 21 quintals of seeds, two cars, and a weighing machine, were recovered from them. The value of the seeds was assessed to be Rs 51 lakh. Four more traders were abscondingabsconding.
Ramagundam Commissioner of Police V Satyanarayana said that the accused were Gurrala Mahender Reddy and Peddammala Raju of Huzurabad in Karimnagar district, Birudu Banesh belonging to Bopparam in Nennel mandal, Durgam Venkatesh and Dyogala Rajalingu from Talla Gurijala in Bellampalli mandal, SK Amzad and Putta Ashok, residents of Bheemini mandal, Takire Santhosh and Kondagorla Rajanna of Kannepalli mandal.
Bachanna Venkanna and Srinivas Rao of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Vanaja from Hattini in Dahegaon and Mallikharjun Rao from Hyderabad were still at large.
The traders were detained during simultaneous raids carried out jointly by sleuths of Ramagundam task force and authorities of the agriculture department under limits of Mancherial, Naspur, Nennal, Talla Gurijala, Bheemini and Kannepalli police stations.
During the course of subsequent investigations, the nine confessed to committing the crime to make a fast buck. They admitted that they were procuring the seeds from neighboring states and secretly selling the same. They disclosed that they were packing the seeds using machines and were selling the same to gullible farmers of both Mancherial and Kumram Bheem Asifabad districts for somewhere beteen Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000.
He warned that stringent action would be taken against the traders of spurious cotton seeds. He stated that 102 persons were booked under Preventive Detention Act under the limits of Ramagundam police commissionerate from 2017 till date. He commended the sleuths of the task force for arresting the traders and presented cash rewards to them.
Mancherial DCP Uday Kumar, ACP Akhil Mahajan and District Agriculture Officer Veeraiah, Inspectors AK Mahender, ML Mutti Lingaiah, K Babu Rao, Kumara Swamy and Raju were present.
Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today onTelegrameveryday. Click the link to subscribe.