Cyberabad police bust spurious cotton seed selling racket, arrest 10

HYDERABAD: The Special Operations Team (SOT) sleuths from Medchal and Rajendranagar zones, along with officials from the Agricultural Department, Medchal and Chevella police stations, conducted joint operations and apprehended 10 persons for possessing spurious cotton seeds in order to sell them to innocent farmers.

The police also seized 3.35 tonnes of spurious cotton seeds and 14,850 empty pouches, both of which are prohibited by the Telangana government and worth Rs 95 lakhs, from the offenders.

Abdul Razzak, the main accused, is a cotton seed businessman from Bhainsa in Nirmal district, and his business partners and mediators are Jaani, Harish, Srinivas, Ilaiah and Mallikarjun.

Abdul Razzak purchased cotton seeds from Kamlesh Patel of Gujarat. He took this seed to Hyderabad with the help of Srinivas, Harish, Ilaiah and Mallikarjun. With the help of Jani and Rafi, he dumped the seed in a room on Railway Station Road in Medchal. A total of 2.53 tonnes of seeds were kept and were to be packaged in pouches and sold to appropriate Telangana farmers.

The accused, Kotha Turkha Alisha alias Basha, is from Govindinne village in Andhra Pradesh's Nandyala district. He works for Kurnool's Gouthami seeds as a cotton seed organiser. He acquires foundation seeds from seed manufacturers and sells them to farmers for seed production. Cotton is harvested and supplied to ginning companies for seed separation. He then returns the seeds to the above companies for germination testing.

In 2023, he delivered five tonnes of seeds to Gouthami Seeds Company in Kurnool, of which 800 kg failed germination/GOT tests due to contamination with BT-III/HT cotton and were returned to him.

He was expected to destroy (devitalize) the same. Instead, he stored it in a rented room on the outskirts of Kurnool before giving it to farmers. He was aware of the demand in the market for BG-III/HT cotton seeds and decided to sell them for his personal financial gains.

According to his plan, he relocated it to the outskirts of Chevella and thereafter contacted Raju for pouches, who works as a printing operator at Sree Nitya Packers in Uppal's IDA. Raju promised to provide Alisha with pouches and contacted Venkatesh and Venu for material and rolls.

A case has been registered Cr.no. 394/2023, U/s 188, 420 IPC and 19 of Seeds Act & Sec 15 of EP Act of Medchal police station.

In another case, a farmer called Mallaiah lives in Siddulur, Vikarabad district. He is sold BG-III/HT cotton seeds under the brand name "Pallavi Seeds," which were supplied by one Roshaiah of Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district. He charged farmers an additional cost for each packet 1,000 of HT seeds, which was prohibited in Telangana state.

On June 9, 2023, Raju, Venkatesh, and Venu, along with pouches, travelled to Chevella to meet Alisha. Meanwhile, they were apprehended red-handed by the SOT, Rajendranagar Zone, Agriculture Department officials, and Chevella PS Police near Saadvi Hotel, Shadnagar road, Chevella Mandal. Similarly, Mallaiah of Siddulur was apprehended with 93 BG-III/HT cotton seed packets (Pallavi seed) while selling spurious seed to farmers in the Chevella area, based on credible information.