A team of forest rangers was ambushed by a gang of illegal timber smugglers who pelted stones at them, damaging their vehicles. The incident took place at Runikhata village in the Bengtol subdivision of Assam's Chirang district.
Preliminary reports indicated that the forest rangers were carrying out an operation to capture timber smugglers in the region which falls under Ranjit Basumatary, the executive member for forests in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
The vehicle with Runikhata forest ranger Pranjal Talukdar was ambushed near the India-Bhutan border on Monday night (December 18) when they were reportedly chasing another vehicle illegally transporting timber from the Ripu reserve forest.
In the heavy stone pelting that followed, the windshield of the forest rangers' vehicle was shattered in a bid to obstruct their vision and deter them from following the timber carrying vehicle.
However, the team of forest rangers managed to carry on and were rewarded with the capture of a member of the gang of timber smugglers. In addition, they seized huge quantities of timber being illegally smuggled, along with a Tata mobile pickup truck.
The detained accused gang member was identified by the officials as one Ramen Islary, who was taken in for questioning. Based on his confession, officials have earmarked notorious timber smuggler Jakhau Basumatary whose operations are spread in the Aie Powali village in Chirang along the Indo-Bhutan border.
It may be mentioned that there have been questions raised in the past as to how Jakhau Basumatary managed to set up and run such a large scale timber smuggling operations for so long, that too in the region which is the council constituency of BTC executive member for forests, Ranjit Basumatary.
Locals have accused him of destroying the reserve forests and smuggling the timber out of Chirang to nearby regions.
