Three persons arrested for smuggling spurious cotton seeds in Telangana’s Asifabad

Police seized 20 quintals of the seeds worth Rs 60 lakh and a van from their possession

Kumram Bheem Asifabad: Task force team has arrested three persons on charges of smuggling spurious cotton seeds from Karnataka to Kagaznagar on Saturday. Police seized 20 quintals of the seeds worth Rs 60 lakh and a van from their possession. Another accused person was absconding.

Briefing details of the arrests to the media, district SP DV Srinivas Rao said that Kottapalli Sadashiv from Kagaznagar, Puppala Laxman of Kurnool and Santosh Kishore of Aheri in Maharashtra were apprehended for smuggling the seeds. They were caught while transporting seeds in a van during a vehicle check held in Kagaznagar. Venugopal Reddy of Rajanna-Sircilla district was still at large.

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During interrogations, Sadashiv confessed to committing the crime to earn money. He admitted to procuring the seed from a manufacturer in Karnataka with the help of Venugopal Reddy and Laxman. He disclosed that he was selling the seeds to farmers in the district and neighboring Maharashtra with the help of Santosh.

Kagaznagar DSP A Ramanujam, Task Force Inspector Ranaprathap, Rural Inspector Srinivas Rao, Task Force SI Venkatesh, Rural SI Sandeep, staffers of the task force Madhu, Ramesh, Mohammad, Devender and Sanjeev were present.