Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 6: Foiling a major smuggling bid, Excise Department at Toll Post Lakhanpur today seized two trucks carrying 9760 willow clefts. These trucks were moving towards Punjab through illegal route.
Deputy Excise Commi-ssioner, Toll Post Lakhanpur, Rajesh Sharma, who personally supervised the operation, said that two vehicles bearing registration numbers JK08A-7129 and JK02AB-6096 were seized by the active staff of the Toll Post Lakhanpur deployed at Nagri/Goondh Minor Toll Post when they tried to move outside the State through illicit route along Ujh river.
The willow clefts form raw material for manufacturing of cricket bats by local industrial units and its export in raw form is not permissible in terms of J&K Willow (Prohibition on Export Movement) Act, 2000.
The vehicles were being driven by Charan Dass and Ram Pal, both residents of Kathua district and they adopted this route for smuggling of the clefts outside the State in order to bypass the toll barriers. The vehicles along with the seized willow clefts have been handed over to the Forest Protection Force of Forest Department for further investigation in the matter, Deputy Excise Commi-ssioner said, adding “the instant foiling of smuggling bid assumes more importance when the evaders have tried to adopt alternate routes through the minor Toll Post / un-guarded areas”.
The whole operation was performed by the team of the Excise Department comprising Excise & Taxation Officers Joginder Singh Jasrotia, Farooq Choudhary, Rohit Sharma, Inspectors Gulrez Malik, Javed Iqbal, Narinder Gupta and Rajesh Chander, Sub-Inspectors Milan Gupta and Bilal Ahmad Mir and Excise Guards Devinder Singh, Ajit Singh, Ashwani Kumar and Nihal Singh.
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