Rachakonda cops detain 2 spurious seed dealers under PD Act
The two men – Mannem Laxmi Narayana (48) and Namburi Srinivasa Rao (52) – sold banned herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds in Rachakonda police limits and in Nalgonda and Bhadradi-Kothagudem districts. They cheated farmers and their families which resulted in the suicides of the farmers, the police said.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 11 Jun 2022 1:08 PM GMT
Hyderabad: The Rachakonda commissioner of police invoked the Preventive Detention Act against two habitual offenders involved in selling spurious seeds and detained them on 11 June.
The two men – Mannem Laxmi Narayana (48) and Namburi Srinivasa Rao (52) – sold banned herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds in Rachakonda police limits and in Nalgonda and Bhadradi-Kothagudem districts. They cheated farmers and their families which resulted in the suicides of the farmers, the police said.
Mannem Laxmi Narayana is from Shantinagar village under Waddepally mandal in Jogulamba-Gadwal district. He took a shed in the Uppal area and started illegally manufacturing, storing, and selling spurious seeds. Between 2019 and 2021, over 10 cases of circulating/supplying and manufacturing spurious seed were reported against him in the limits of Bhadradri-Kothagudem, Nalgonda, and Rachakonda commissionerate.
In 2020, he was detained under the PD Act by the Rachakonda police and lodged in Cherlapally Central Prison. Soon after he was released, he again started purchasing BT-3 cotton seeds and selling them to farmers.
Meanwhile, Namburi Srinivasa Rao, who is from Andhra Pradesh, worked in Bharathi Seed Company for about two years and was well acquainted with the process of manufacturing seeds. He met Narayana Reddy from Karnataka who was already manufacturing illegal BT-3 cotton seeds. He asked Srinivasa Rao to purchase spurious cotton seeds from him and sell them through his agents, including Mannem Laxmi Narayana.
In 2021, Laxmi Narayana and Srinivasa Rao were arrested by the Nalgonda police for selling spurious seeds/banned cotton seeds to the farmers.
On 1 May 2022, the Vanasthalipuram police and agriculture officials of Saroornagar mandal raided Laxmi Narayana's house in Kamalanagar, Vanasthalipuram, and seized 30 bags of BT-3 cotton seeds and a car that was being used to transport the seeds.
To check the menace of illegal spurious seeds, Rachakonda commissioner of police Mahesh M. Bhagwat detained the two men and sent them to Cherlapally Central Prison.
