23 sandalwood trees looted from Bengaluru's CMTI campus in a single night

Miscreants have chopped and carted away 23 sandalwood trees from the premises of the Central Manufacturing Technology Institute (CMTI), an autonomous R&D facility under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, on Tumakuru Road.

Though CMTI’s CEO claimed, in his police complaint, that the theft took place in the intervening night of August 18 and 19, police investigation showed it could have happened during the initial week of August.

Police sources suspect that the CMTI management is attempting to cover up its lapses. Notably, the area where the trees were situated lacked any form of CCTV surveillance. The theft seems to have been carried out meticulously with possible inside knowledge.

RMC Yard police have taken up a case under the Karnataka Forest Act and IPC Section 279 (theft).

As mentioned in the complaint, registered by CMTI CEO Venkatachalam G, the trees were stolen sometime between 11 pm on August 18 and 8 am on August 19. Of these, 18 trees were positioned within the campus premises, close to the compound and the Tumakuru Road service lane, while the remaining five stood outside the compound, adjacent to the campus of the chief engineer, Air Force.

Venkatachalam told DH that the trees were located amid dense shrubbery where human activities were minimal. "It neither has security guards nor CCTV surveillance," he admitted, adding that the noise from heavy vehicular traffic on Tumakuru Road could have masked the sound of the tree-cutting.

A police official involved in the investigation said the evidence obtained from the remains of the felled trees strongly suggests that the theft might have occurred well before the timeframe indicated in the CEO's complaint. “We are trying to find out if habitual sandalwood thieves are involved," the officer said.

The officer concurred that the trees were located in a remote area of the 25-acre CMTI campus, at least 500 metres from the main building.

The officer also noted that exclusively small- to medium-sized trees, typically utilised for sandalwood oil production, were targeted for the theft.