Foresters in north Bengal on Friday busted a red sandalwood smuggling racket based in the Dooars and seized 920 kilos of timber worth around Rs 73.6 lakh.

Three persons — a contractor, a government employee and a former panchayat member — have been arrested in this connection.

However, foresters have not divulged their identities as the investigations are on.

On Friday evening, Ajit Singh Yadav, the superintendent of the forest protection force, along with a team of foresters from different forest ranges of the department, raided North Mendabari in Kalchini block of Alipurduar district based on a tip-off.

“In all, 920 kilos of red sandalwood were recovered from a house in North Mendabari, close to Jaldapara National Park,” said an official.

In recent times, this is one of the major seizures of red sandalwood in this region.

A kilo of red sandalwood is sold at Rs 8,000 in the grey market.

Sources in the department said that the sandalwood was illegally chopped in the forests of Andhra Pradesh.

“From there, it was smuggled to Delhi via road and later brought into this region. We suspect the timber was camouflaged cleverly with some other items and thus the smugglers could evade checking on the route. The plan was to smuggle the wood to Bhutan and China,” said a source.

Red sanders or sandalwood is reported to be one of India's most exploited tree species, which is under severe pressure from illegal logging and harvesting. The hued sandalwood species is native to Andhra Pradesh and grows in five districts of the state.

The valuable timber is not just used to make furniture and house posts, but also carvings and musical instruments.