Suryapet: Suryapet police busted two gangs dealing in spurious seeds and arrested seven members of the gangs. They also seized 29.2 quintals of spurious cotton seeds worth Rs 70 lakh from their procession.
The arrested persons of the first gang were Kommalapati Srinivas (40) of Kodur in Suryapet district, Kommalapati Satheesh (43) of Nara Kodur in Guntur district, P Kondal Rao (48) of Ongole, Pantyala Ramanjaneyulu (44) of Nagulaphad village in Prakasam district. The king pin of the spurious seeds racket Pentyala Veeranjaneyulu (45) of Kompally in Hyderabad is at large.
In another case of spurious speeds marketing case in Thungathurthy, the arrested were identified as Jatangi Sathyanarayana (57) of Annaram, Thumu Ram Murali (36) of Keshavapuram and Nagarjunapu Vijaya Bhaskar of Munagala in Suryapet. Another persons in the case, Ravi of Hyderabad, is absconding.
Presenting the arrested gang members at a media conference, Superintendent of Police R Bhaskaran informed that five special teams were formed to crack down on the marketing of spurious speeds in the district.
On credible information, the police caught Srinivas red-handed at Arvepally on Monday while he was transporting spurious cotton seeds. During inquiry, the arrested person revealed the details of other gang members.
Veeranjaneyulu, who was at large, was the kingpin of the racket and he was cultivating BT-II cotton in 20 acres at Kustigi and in 12 acres at Nachavaram in Karnataka for the last 10 years for the purpose of producing seeds. After chemical processing, the spurious seeds were being packaged in the packets of branded seed companies and were being marketed in Telangana to make money, the police said.
Veeranjaneyulu was arrested by Kalwakurthi police in 2019 for marketing spurious speeds.
In the second case, the police conducted a raid on houses of three persons at Annaram village of Thungathurthy mandal and seized 432 kgs of spurious seeds. Three persons were arrested in the case.
The police filed cases under sections 120(B), 420 IPC, Section 7 of EC Act Section 19 of Seeds Act, 1966, Section 15 (1) of EP Act, 1986.
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