The Bengal forest department seized an illegal consignment of Burmese teak wood worth around Rs one crore from the outskirts of Siliguri on Friday.
The seizure was made by a team led by Sanjay Dutta, the Belakoba range officer in the Baikunthapur forest division, after receiving a tipoff. The foresters who were patrolling NH27 in the morning intercepted two trucks at Panikauri in Jalpaiguri district.
“The vehicles were taken to the forest beat office at Mantadari. We searched the trucks and found teak logs. The drivers could not produce any document to validate the transportation of the timber. The logs were seized and they have been arrested,” said a forest officer.
The foresters said the timber had been loaded onto the trucks in Guwahati and was on its way to Calcutta.
The arrested drivers were S. Ganga Raju and Shaji N, who are from Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, respectively.
Narcotics haul
Siliguri police on Thursday arrested Md. Jahangir who was allegedly carrying 260 grams of brown sugar (a derivative of heroin) worth around Rs four lakh.
Jahangir, who was arrested from Fuleswari in the city, is alleged to be an associate of Md. Tamanna, who had been arrested recently.