Hyderabad: Illegal sale of spurious cotton seeds busted, 4 held

HYDERABAD: A gang involved in a

spurious cotton seed racket

was busted on Friday and four members were arrested by

Special Operations Team

(SOT) sleuths of

Rachakonda

commissionerate. The sleuths seized Rs 50 lakh worth of stock.

Acting on specific information, SOT sleuths of LB Nagar along with the officials of agriculture department intercepted a DCM van near Kandukur and nabbed the offenders while they were transporting spurious Bt cotton

seeds

to sell it to farmers. Thirtynine bags containing two tonnes of spurious cotton seed along with the van, a seed processing machine, two seed packing machines and 76,700 empty packets of various seed selling brands were recovered.

The accused have been identified as M Laxmi Narayana (46) of Mansoorabad, P Yusif Bhasha (27), van driver from

Kurnool

in AP, M Dasari Suresh (21), van cleaner from Kurnool and V Bachi (42), a businessman from Mansoorabad. Their associate, Hussain Saheb, of

Nandyal

is absconding.

According to Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat, Narayana, the main accused, has been indulging in illegal sale of Bt-3 cotton seed. “Narayana has a criminal history. He was previously arrested by Khammam police in 2019 for illegal sale of Bt cotton seeds,” he said.

Recently, Narayana set up a cotton seed processing unit, Thapasya Agro Tech, at Laxminagar Colony in Uppal without obtaining a licence. “He has been selling the seeds procured from Hussain under various brand names after processing them here,” Bhagwat said.

The accused along with the seized material were handed over to Kandukur police. A case was registered against them under sections 420 of the IPC, 3(1) of Seeds (Control) Order, 1983, clause-7 of Fertilisers (Control) Order, 1985, 3(2)(d) of Essential Commodities Act and 9(1)(C) of Insecticides Act, 1968.


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