MANSEHRA: Police have arrested 12 persons for allegedly trespassing into a reserved forest, illegally felling trees and constructing a road without lawful authority in Oghi.
“We have arrested all the suspects who allegedly cut trees after trespassing into the reserved forest,” Sub-Divisional Forest Officer (SDFO), Agror Division, Malik Farhad told reporters.He said the Forest Department acted on a tip-off that a group of people was illegally cutting down trees while constructing a road through the reserved forest. “Our teams rushed to the site and found that the suspects had cut down trees and were shifting the timber to a nearby location in an apparent attempt to conceal the offence,” Malik Farhad said.
He alleged that the suspects had not only felled trees illegally but had also encroached upon government forest land. The forest official said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Department had adopted strict measures to curb deforestation and timber smuggling across Agror Forest Division and other parts of the province.
He said the department had also identified notorious timber smugglers and was keeping a close watch on their activities, while intensifying patrolling along the Karakoram Highway and Hazara Expressway across Hazara Division. “We have registered cases against all the suspects under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Ordinance, 2002,” Farhad said.
He identified the arrested suspects as Mohammad Ayub, Kala Khan, Azam Khan, Mohammad Liaqat, Mohammad Sadir, Mohammad Sabir, Mohammad Sharif, Haider Zaman, Sultan Khan, Mohammad Jan, Ayub Khan and Gulfaraz.
