After DIG office,thieves strike at Circuit House for sandalwood trees

Two sandalwood trees were chopped off and stolen from the Junagadh Circuit House,a highly guarded government premises,on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

Two sandalwood trees were chopped off and stolen from the Junagadh Circuit House,a highly guarded government premises,on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday. This comes less than a month after the rare aromatic tree on the brink of extinction was stolen from the office of Junagadh Deputy Inspector General.

While police are yet to make any breakthrough in the first case,the forest department has not ruled out involvement of the same gang in the latest incident.

Two trees have vanished from the backyard,which is reserved for entry of VIPs, said a forest department official after a preliminary investigation on Thursday. Now nearly two-foot high trunks of the stolen trees are left. The modus operandi is similar to that of the theft at the DIG office, added the official.

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As per the preliminary investigation,the two trees were around 16-17 years old and each was worth over Rs 1 lakh.

Police said they had initiated the process to file a complaint in this regard.

There are 150-odd sandalwood trees in the Circuit House premises,which is used as guest house for officials,politicians and other VIPs and has a 24-hour security cover.

According to forest officials,when the demand of sandalwood is too high in domestic as well as international market,Indian sandalwood can fetch $25,000 per tonne.

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In the recent past,the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Customs department have filed a few cases wherein illegal sandalwood consignments were seized from the Kandla and Adani ports.

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