Hyderabad: Ten persons held for selling spurious cotton seeds

Following a tip-off, the police teams nabbed the gangs and recovered spurious seeds from them

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Special Operations Team along with the local police and Agriculture department officials on Friday arrested 10 persons in separate incidents at Medchal and Chevella for allegedly storing spurious cotton seeds and selling them to farmers. Officials seized 3.35 tons of spurious (BG-III/HT) cotton seeds worth Rs.95 lakh.

In the first case, five persons identified as Abdul Razzak from Nirmal district, Mallikarjuna, Srinivas and P.Harish from Mancherial and Abdul Rafi from Jagityal were arrested in Medchal. The absconding persons are Illaiah, Jaani and Kamlesh Patel.

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According to the police, Abdul Razzak to sell spurious cotton seeds to unsuspecting farmers and other dealers in the market at a low cost sought support of Jaani and his mediators – Harish, Srinivas, Ilaiah and Mallikarjun. Abdul Razzak procured the BG3/HT cotton seed from one Kamlesh Patel of Gujarat and brought them to Hyderabad.

“He stored 2.53 tons of spurious seeds in a room near Medchal railway station which was to be packed in pouches and sold to farmers and dealers,” said M.Stephen Raveendra, Cyberabad Police Commissioner.

In another case, Basha from Nandyal, V.Raju from Cherlapally, T.Venkatesh from Boduppal, Venu Kumar from Suryapet and Mallaiah from Vikarabad were arrested in Chevella. The absconding persons are Babu Rao and Roshaiah.

Basha, a cotton seed dealer from Kurnool, collects the foundation seeds from companies and gives to the farmers for production of seed. After yielding the cotton crop, the same is sent to the companies for separation of seeds. After this process he returns the seeds to the companies for a germination test.

Police said Basha kept the seeds which failed the germination test and instead of destroying them, planned to sell them to farmers. He shifted the seeds to a store house on Chevella outskirts and contacted Raju, a printing operator for pouches. The gang packed the seeds in the pouches and were waiting for an opportunity to sell them, when they were caught.

Following a tip-off, the police teams nabbed the gangs and recovered spurious seeds from them.