KARACHI: Police claimed to have arrested two members of a gang involved in the illegal cutting of mangrove trees in Karachi on Sunday.
Carrying out action against loggers, police arrested two who were allegedly belonging to a gang involved in timber smuggling.
The arrests were made in Ibrahim Hyderi area of the metropolis.
Law enforcers have also recovered more than 200 tons of mangrove tree wood loaded on a truck during the raid.
According to Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Malir, the accused persons, Kamran and Mazhar, were arrested from Chashma roundabout. He said that the persons were involved in the illegal cutting of tree and selling of the wood into timber market.
A case was registered against the accused persons under the Forest Act, he added.
Earlier in October last year, the officials of Forest Department in Chitral had foiled a bid to smuggle two truckloads of timber and arrested two persons.
The forest department staff was informed about the presence of logs of precious timber in two trucks, sub-divisional forest officer Umair Nawaz said. One of the trucks parked at a saw machine had Peshawar registration number C-8945.
The timber was covered with bags of potatoes to hide them from the officials. The forest department personnel in a night raid captured the two trucks with timber logs but the accused made their escape in the darkness of the night.
The forest department staff, however, arrested two suspects Aurangzeb s/o Badshahzada and Sadruddin s/o Shamsuddin in the morning and registered a case against them under the protection of forests act. The accused were intending to carry the precious construction timber to sell it in high demand areas.
