Pushpa'-style hideout bust: Timber sunk in ponds, buried in backyards found in tiger reserve of Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR: Forest officials probing illegal felling in Chhattisgarh’s Gariyaband district made an unusual discovery this week — a pond allegedly being used as a hideout for stolen timber in the buffer zone of Udanti Sitanadi tiger reserve. The discovery had shades of the famous movie 'Pushpa'-style plot twist.Acting on intelligence inputs, forest officials followed the trail of suspected timber smugglers to an unlikely hiding spot, a village pond where logs had allegedly been sunk underwater, apparently in the hope that enforcement teams would never think to look beneath the surface.Nearly five cubic metres of wood was recovered from beneath the water.The discoveries were made during a joint operation by Gariyaband police and the Udanti-Sitanadi tiger reserve (USTR) authorities in Sahibinkachhar village, a settlement located close to the Odisha border that has been under surveillance following intelligence inputs on illegal teak storage and transportation.The operation began after police alerted forest officials about suspected illegal stockpiling of teak wood. During a raid on June 5, officials recovered 193 teak sleepers and other processed timber worth an estimated Rs 6 lakh from a villager's house and premises. One accused was arrested and remanded to judicial custody, said Varun Jain, deputy director, USTR.What followed led investigators to a much larger network.Jain said that based on subsequent leads, forest officials obtained search warrants against multiple suspects and launched fresh raids on June 9. Anticipating the searches, several accused allegedly attempted to dispose of evidence by dumping teak logs in ponds, hiding timber near streams and burying wooden sleepers in pits dug inside their compounds.Forest personnel, aided by a sniffer dog, tracked and recovered the concealed stock. Officials seized an additional cache of teak and bija wood from various locations in and around the village, taking the total recovery to about 4.56 cubic metres of timber."The searches also yielded evidence suggesting links with timber smugglers operating from neighbouring Odisha. Several houses were found furnished with teak sofa sets allegedly made from illegally sourced wood. The operation revealed more than just timber violations," Jain said.Four accused were allegedly found in possession of illegally stored teak, while three others were linked to the recovery of body parts of a porcupine, a Schedule-II protected species, along with snares used for hunting. Officials said some of the suspects are also under scrutiny in an earlier wildlife crime case involving alleged use of explosive "potash bombs" for hunting.Forest teams additionally seized a petrol-operated saw machine and three large hand-operated saws suspected to have been used in processing the timber.Located along the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border, the South Udanti landscape has remained vulnerable to illegal timber extraction and poaching due to its dense forests and proximity to interstate routes.