CHITTOOR / KADAPA: The Seshachalam forests reverberated with the sound of gun fire in the wee hours of Saturday as special police opened fire on a gang of red sander smugglers and killed one of them at Chinnagottigallu in Chittoor district.
Revealing this to Express here, District SP G Srinivas said that two special police teams had gone into forest near the Kalyani Dam and Chinnagottugallu areas on specific information that red sander smugglers were cutting trees there. As soon as the teams neared the Bammaji Kona around 2 am, they found a huge dump of 75 freshly-cut red sander logs. Further searches led them to the Devarakonda range, bordering the Kadapa district, where they were attacked by red sander smugglers with stones. After the police firing into air proved ineffective, they opened fire at the smugglers killing one of them. The others fled the place.
Meanwhile on the Kadapa district side, the police and forest officials took up a massive combing operation in Balupalle forest area of Railway Kodur mandal after receiving information that nearly 100 smugglers were camping in the area.