Butwal revealed to be hub of red sandalwood smuggling

Amidst the several incidents of red sandal wood smuggling and seizure, the sandalwood smuggled from India through Sunauli transit point is revealed to have being stored in the locations surrounding Butwal, commercial city of western region. It is revealed that smugglers have been using rice mills and fertilizers and rice warehouses to hide such sandal wood.

The red sandal of huge amount has been founded stored in a mill of Devdaha near Butwal and Karauti VDC ward No. 1 near Bhairahawa on Sunday. The sandal wood was found when a team of police, district forest office staffs and activists of CPN-Maoist affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) raided a mill of Pipaldada based on the information that smugglers were using the locations for sandal storage.

Seized sandal wood worth around Rs. 30 million was hidden under the sacks of rice and chemical fertilizer. The Mill owner Rabis Agrawal has been operating business of rice and fertilizer for last three years.

The local people claimed that Agrawal had been smuggling sandal wood for a long time. They said piles of wood would be visualized in the night at his warehouse and would disappear before the dawn. “we would suspect him and also asked what they were, he would reply that he was sending wood to Kathmandu for friend’s furniture” Agrawal’s neighbor Damodar Sharma said “he used to transport those wood hiding under the sacks of rice and fertilizer.”

Another neighbor of Agrawal, Gita said “We have already suspected him but today it is proved.” Police has suspected that smugglers might have used the locations surrounding Butawal to store the sandal wood. The police also said that it would raid some other suspected areas. Police has arrested Shakuntala Agrawal, wife of Rabish Agrawal as he has escaped.

Two days earlier, the sandal wood belonging to Agrawal was seized from Chitawan while being carried to Kathamandu.

Likewise, 20 quintals of sandal wood, 3 hundred sacks of illegally traded fertilizer and  70 sacks of cement was seized from ward no 1 of Karauti VDC with the help of YCL activists.  According to YCL central member Jitendra those seized materials belonged to Amar Jeet Yadav.