The special operations team (SOT) of Medchal and Rajendranagar zone, along with Medchal and Chevella police and the officials from the Agricultural Department, nabbed 10 people with 3.35 tonnes of spurious cotton seed worth ₹95 lakh.
The arrested were identified as Abdul Razzak, 59, Mundru Mallikarjuna, 30, Maidam Srinivas, 40, Potlapally Harish, 26, and Abdul Rafi, 35, while their associates Illaiah, Jani and Kamlesh Patel are on the run.
“We seized 2,530 kilos of the banned seed, worth ₹75 lakh, from them. All of them had previously been involved in similar cases and were arrested by the Telangana police. Abdul Razzak runs a cotton seed business and had purchased BG3/HT cotton seed from Kamlesh Patel of Gujarat,” the police said.
In the second case, the Rajendranagar SOT, along with the Chevella police, caught Kotha Turkha Alisha alias Basha, 43, Vubbani Raju, 38, Tipparaboina Venkatesh, 53, Somgani Venu Kumar, 42, and Kavali Mallaiah, 42, while the other accused Babu Rao and Roshaiah are at large, police said.
Basha worked as a cotton seed organiser and collected foundation seed from companies and gives them to farmers. This year, he gave five tonnes of the seed to a company in Kurnool, out of which 800 kilos failed in germination/GOT test and were contaminated with BT-III/HT cotton. The same was returned to him, and he was supposed to destroy them, instead - he kept the same in a rented room on the outskirts of Kurnool to hand them over to farmers, added the official.
