Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa wrote a letter to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. In the letter she urged CM to release all the 32 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu. The woodcutters were arrested by AP police on August 5 for red sander smuggling. Jayalalithaa described the woodcutters as “innocent”.  

All the woodcutters hail from Chennai, Tiruvannamalai and Vellore districts. She told Naidu that “they were reportedly travelling to Tirupati by Garudadri Express when they were arrested at Renigunta Railway Station. All the woodcutters have been charged under different sections of IPC and the AP Forest Act, 1967 and lodged in Chittoor Jail.”

“These persons, who were only passengers in a train, have been arrested on the suspicion of alleged forest related offences. It is not clear how they have been accused of forest related offences when they were nowhere near the forest,” she said.

“I request you to urgently intervene in the matter and facilitate their immediate release. I am also deputing two advocates of the government of Tamil Nadu to liaise with your officers in securing the immediate release of the 32 innocent persons from Tamil Nadu,” Jayalalithaa said.

The DSP said “they were produced before a court in Tirupati on Saturday and remanded in judicial custody. A total of 22 mobile phones, 21 axes and 10 bags of rice were seized from them.”

DMK president M Karunanidhi said “those arrested were not woodcutters as was being made out by Andhra Pradesh police and sought “friend” Naidu’s intervention in their release. Considering that Chief Minister (Jayalalithaa), friend Chandrababu Naidu, places importance on good relations between the people of the two States, he should personally intervene and ensure their release and send them back to the respective native places. I also want to make a friendly appeal to Andhra Pradesh police to shun away from targeting Tamils in future too. I hope chief minister Chandrababu Naidu will come forward to help innocent Tamils on humanitarian grounds.”

DMK chief said that “my party legislator E.V. Velu tried to move a call attention motion in the Assembly on Friday in vain. It was not taken up for the discussion stating that chief minister has to reply for it,.”

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BY M. DIVYA SRI