BIJNOR: Two years after the Delhi crime branch and UP police seized 133 quintals of red and white sandalwood from a godown in Amroha and booked five people in a joint operation on August 9, 2020, the court of chief judicial magistrate (CJM) Kamalapati exonerated all five on Saturday citing "lack of evidence". The sandalwood recovered back then was worth Rs 50 crore in the international market, cops said.
The five booked included Arshad Ali Ansari, Mahmood Alam Ansari, Mohammad Salman, Qamar Ahmed Ansari, and his son Shakir. They were arrested in October, 2020 but later they came out on bail a month after the arrest, after allegedly "producing valid documents of their trade in the court." Qamar and his son were called the "kingpins" of the gang. They were accused of smuggling sandalwood abroad. The cops even attached Qamar's property worth Rs 5.9 crore, earlier this year.
Lawyer of the accused, Matloob Subhaani, said, "There is a firm operating in Haryana and Delhi, of which Qamar Ahmed Ansari and his son Shakir are the directors. They purchased sandalwood in the name of their firm and also had legal documents of the purchase made which were seized by cops. Later, we produced all the necessary documents in the court, which proved Qamar and four others innocent. The court then acquitted all five of them in the case on Saturday."
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