Police arrested three persons on Wednesday for smuggling timber from Malda to Rajasthan on the basis of a complaint lodged by forest department officials.

Among them, Gautam Karmakar, a former contractual employee of the forest department, allegedly used fake seals and stamps to prepare forged papers to validate the transport of the illegal timber.

Sujit Kumar Chatterjee, a range officer the state forest department posted here, said that recently they intercepted a truck laden with mango timber near Malda Town station.

“The driver furnished a transit pass which said wood had been loaded at Paranpur in Malda and would be taken to Bharatpur in Rajasthan. It carried the official seal of the forest range officer of Kaliachak. We checked the signature and found it suspicious. We detained the consignment and driver,” said Chatterjee.

On contacting the forest officer of Kaliachak, they found the transit pass was fake and filed a police complaint.

The police arrested Imrat a.k.a. Amrat Singh, the truck driver from Rajasthan. During interrogation, he said Gautam Karmakar of Gazole and Sohel Rana of Englishbazar were involved in timber smuggling. Karmakar who worked in the forest department earlier on contract, had prepared the fake transit pass.

He had used fake seals of forest officers and forging their signatures.

“Both were arrested. We suspect they are associated with a timber smuggling racket that is involved in illegal selling of mango timber from the district,” said Amitabha Maiti, SP, Malda.

The forest department, he said, has registered a separate case of smuggling and probing it.

Sources said Karmakar earlier was removed from his post because of unfair conduct.

“During primary investigation, we have learnt that he (Karmakar) knows the official procedure of transferring wood. This helped him make the fake documents. We also have information that on a couple of occasions he had even introduced himself as a forest officer in some places,” said a police officer.