The timber scam came to light when 50 railway wagons containing illegally felled timber were detained at the Tinsukia station in Assam between October 5 and 8. The Supreme Court recently ordered that only legally felled timber with the Forest Department's hammer mark can be transported by the Railways.

According to Home Ministry's report, illegally felled timber is being transported `on a large scale' in railway wagons outside the north-eastern states by mixing the illegal timber with legal timber.

Forest authorities took action only after repeatedreminders from the MHA which provided a CRPF guard for the raids. The officials who conducted the raids found 46 wagons loaded with timber ready for despatch to three destinations Delhi, West Bengal and Punjab. There were 29 consignments out of which 23 were from Arunachal Pradesh, five from Assam and one from Nagaland. The raiding party found that almost half of the timber booked had been illegally felled without the mandatory hammer markings. Besides, each wagon was fully loaded, the report said, although papers showed half the quantity. The report estimates that timber worth nearly Rs 200 crore has been smuggled out of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh alone in the past year.The Home ministry had first ordered Kumar's suspension on June 29 but it took the government nearly four months to pass the order. This, despite Union Home Secretary Kamal Pande calling for a CBI inquiry and writing of Kumar's `close political connections' with former CM Gegong Apang. The MHA was formally informed on October 18 that he hadbeen suspended.