Sandalwood smugglers are once again active in Hazaribagh. On Sunday night they felled two trees planted in the Muktidham premises, where Hindus perform last rites. The smugglers succeeded in taking away the woods from first tree, but they failed to cut down the second tree completely.
According to the President of Muktidham committee, Vijay Verma there were 35 trees in the premises and during last 10 years the smugglers have stolen 29 of them. last night Secretary Dinesh Ram was in Muktidham, but the daring smugglers succeeded in cutting the trees. Perhaps they used chainsaw which cuts tree with minimum noise. Perhaps the battery of the machine failed, so they had to left the second tree half cut.
A sandalwood tree of 15 to 20 years age is worth about Rs2 lakhs as per the present market price. Since last 10 years the smugglers have stolen sandalwood trees of crores from Hazaribagh town only. About 2 years ago they dared to steal sandalwood tree from the premises of Forest Office of Hazaribagh which is situated in a densely populated area of the town.
Since no result has come yet in all the cases of sandalwood tree stealing cases so the smugglers are daring to steal trees from the houses of forest officials too. Sadar Police has registered a case but its hands are empty yet as was in earlier cases.