Hyderabad: Four persons who were allegedly transporting spurious cotton seeds were nabbed by the Special Operations Team (SOT), LB Nagar zone.Acting on specific information, the SOT sleuths along with officials of agricultural department and Kandukur police on Thursday conducted a joint raid and nabbed four persons – Manyam Laxmi Narayana, Pinjari Yusif Basha, Mala Dasari Suresh and Vempati Bachi on the outskirts of Kandukuru village of RR district while they were transporting the spurious cotton seed to sell to gullible farmers.
A total of 39 bags containing around two tons of spurious cotton seed along with a van, seed processing machine, two seed packing machines and 76,700 empty seed packing covers of various brands were seized from their possession. The total worth of seized property was around Rs.50 lakhs, according to a press release.
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According to the police, Manyam Laxmi Narayana, a native of Jogulamba Gadwal district and resident of Mansoorabad, Nagole, had been selling the spurious cotton seed i.e., banned BT-3 Glicle by establishing a cotton seed processing unit Thapasya Agro Tech, at Laxminagar colony, Uppal. The suspect has no license under Seed Act 1966 to manufacture or sell the cotton seed.
Laxmi Narayana used to procure loose seed from Nandyala town of Kurnool district and after reprocessing the same at his processing unit in Uppal, he would pack the spurious seed in different brands of covers viz., Lion, Raghu, Kavya, Billa, Arunodaya, Meghana-45, and Pavani etc. With the assistance of others, he would transport the same to different areas and sell the same to the farmers.
Last year, criminal cases were registered against Laxmi Narayana in Tekulapally police station, Burgampadu police station and Ashwaraopuram police station of erstwhile Khammam district, and he was arrested and remanded to judicial custody and those cases are pending trial.
The arrests on Thursday were made under the supervision of Mahesh M Bhagwat, Rachakonda Police Commissioner, G.Sudheer Babu, Additional Commissioner of Police, Rachakonda, Sunpreeth Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, LB Nagar Zone and in the presence of agriculture officers, the press release added.