A team of police personnel from Tandi arrested Visan Lama alias Vayankar, deputy platoon commander of PLA, along with three locals -- Eman Thapa Magar, Om Rana and Shiva Khatri -- on Thursday evening on the charge of illegally selling off timbers out of a community forest wherein the former Maoist combatants´ third division cantonment has been set up. [break]
The alleged smugglers were playing cards in Ratnanagar after selling 13 cubic feet of timber out of the total 55 cubit feet smuggled out of the forest when police nabbed them. Police seized 42 logs of timber and Rs 60,000 from them. Police nabbed them acting on a tip-off.
According to the police, the accused have conceded that they had smuggled timber from Gairibari in Udayapur Community Forest.
The third division cantonment of PLA has admitted that one of the arrested is its member.
However, it refused any its link with timber smuggling as the arrested PLA member was on a leave.
"Visan was not on his duty," Janak Bishta Kunwar, spokesperson for the third division cantonment, said.
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