A large haul of timber, suspected to be Burmese teak, was recovered from a parcel cargo express train (PCET) van at the New Jalpaiguri (NJP) railway station on Thursday.

However, till late in the evening, confusion prevailed as to whether the consignment was illegally transported from the Northeast. The train was bound for Sankrail, a station near Howrah.

The Government Railway Police (GRP), as well as the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) authorities, are checking out whether the consignment was backed by proper documents.

“The timber was loaded in the PCET, which has been outsourced to a private logistics company. The loading was done at Azara in Assam. We are verifying the documents and other details,” said K.K. Sharma, the NFR chief public relations officer.

Sources said that on Thursday afternoon, as the train reached platform 2 of the NJP, a team of GRP searched six coaches of the train and found the logs. Workers were engaged, and altogether, 240 logs were recovered.

During the exercise, unconfirmed sources said that the loco pilot at the guard of the train was not found on the train.

“There is no basis for such claims. They have no relation with the matter, and they have gone somewhere is also not true,” said a railway official.

A GRP source confirmed that they were checking documents. “We are going by the appropriate procedures to confirm whether the consignment was legal,”
said the source.

Illegal wood

Foresters of the Mahananda wildlife division seized an illegal consignment of timber at Rongtong on the outskirts of Siliguri on Thursday.

Sources said a team led by Deepak Rasaily, a range officer posted in the division, intercepted a pick-up van near the Rongtong railway station.

As they searched it, they found it was loaded with sal and teak timber.

Two persons in the vehicle — Bishal Rai and Sailen Rai of Khaprail, a locality on the outskirts of Siliguri — were arrested. The estimated price of the seized timber is
around ₹4 lakh.