Miscreants on Monday night felled as many as four sandalwood trees and took them away from the Ramakrishna Mutt garden here under the lingaraj police station limits.
Swami Adiwananda, a member of the mutt said it is suspected that this might be the handiwork of some professional miscreants who have used a machine for chopping the trees. They targeted the garden as there were no security guards there. The theft came to light next morning after we spotted the chopped trees inside the Mutt premises,” he added.
Though the smugglers were successful in decamping with the four trees, they could not touch another sandalwood tree in the garden.The mutt administration has lodged a complaint with police as well as forest officials.The estimated cost of the stolen sandalwood trees would be over `5 lakh, said a police officer.