Indian Police Say 20 Shot Dead In Clash With Sandalwood Smugglers

Highly sought after: Indian Red Sandalwood Logs INSET products from sandalwood including ornate (clockwise) furniture, luxury handmade soap, fragrant oil and sandalwood chess pieces

Sandalwood is one of the most expensive trees in the world. Sandalwood, in various forms, has uses in medicine, food, technology, distillation, fragrance, and in certain religions.  In medicine, Sandalwood essential oil was popular in herbal medicine up to 1920–1930, mostly as a urogenital (internal) and skin (external) antiseptic. Its main component is santalol (about 75%). It is used in aromatherapy and to prepare soaps. While in technology, due to its low fluorescence and optimal refractive index, sandalwood oil is often employed as an immersion oil within ultraviolet and fluorescence microscopy. Sandalwood is so expensive, because unlike most trees, it is harvested by removing the entire tree instead of sawing it down at the trunk close to ground level. This way, wood from the stump and root can also be used, GRAPHITTI NEWS research reveals.

Red sandalwood is highly sought after in neighbouring China and other parts of East Asia, mainly for making furniture.

India banned its sale in 2000 after the tree was placed on an endangered list, but illegal logging is rampant. Most of the wood is smuggled out through northeast India into Myanmar.

AFP/GRAPHITTI NEWS report continues:

 At least 20 people were killed when police opened fire Tuesday on loggers who attacked them with axes and stones in an area of southern India known for sandalwood smuggling.

Deputy Inspector General M. Kantha Rao said his officers had opened fire "in self-defence" after challenging a group of over 100 suspected smugglers in a remote forest in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Rights activists in Andhra Pradesh said there had been frequent clashes between police and loggers in Chittoor over the smuggling of sandalwood, which is highly sought after in neighbouring China ©Noah Seelam (AFP)

A local forestry department official told AFP separately that the loggers used axes, sticks and stones to attack officers from a newly-formed anti-smuggling task force who were searching the forest.

"Our police party warned them to hand over the logs," Rao said. "They were accompanied by forest officials as well. But the smugglers refused to hand over the logs.

"Ultimately in self-defence the police opened fire on the smugglers and found nine bodies in one position, and 11 bodies in another," he said.

Rao, who heads the task force set up to combat the smuggling of sandalwood, said six or seven police officers had been wounded during the clash in Chittoor district.

He said his officers had come under attack in the past from loggers in the forests of Chittoor, which is around 480 kilometres (300 miles) north of the state capital Hyderabad and is known for its red sandalwood trees.

The Hindu newspaper reported on Friday that Rao had sought approval from state authorities to open fire on smugglers.

One of India's most notorious bandits, Veerappan, was accused of smuggling sandalwood worth US$22 million before he was shot dead in a gunbattle with Tamil Nadu police in 2004.

M. Ravi Kumar, the head forestry official for Chittoor, said 18 of those killed on Tuesday were labourers and the other two were "leaders" of smuggling operations.

Rights activists in Andhra Pradesh said there had been frequent clashes between police and loggers in the area.

V.S. Krishna, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Forum, said an earlier attack described by police as a gunbattle had turned out to be "one-sided firing" by police.

"We have been to Chittoor on a fact-finding mission for an earlier alleged encounter, and we found out that it was not an exchange of fire case but one-sided firing by the special task force of the police," he said.

"They surrounded the workers deep in the forest, having every opportunity to take them into custody, but instead fired straight away, killing several of these workers."

The loggers were often poor migrant workers from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, he said.

Santalum album or Indian sandalwood is a small tropical tree, and is the most commonly known source of sandalwood. This species has historically been cultivated, processed and traded since ancient times. Certain cultures place great significance on its fragrant and medicinal qualities. The high value of the species has caused its past exploitation, to the point where the wild population is vulnerable to extinction. Indian sandalwood still commands high prices for its essential oil, but due to lack of sizable trees it is no longer used for fine woodworking as before. The plant is widely cultivated and long lived, although harvest is viable after 40 years. Etymologically it is derived from Sanskrit Chandanam > Sandanam > Sandalum > Sandal.

The use of S. album in India is noted in literature for over two thousand years. It has use as wood and oil in religious practices. It also features as a construction material in temples and elsewhere. The Indian government has banned the export of the species to reduce the threat by over-harvesting. In the southern Indian state of Karnataka, all trees of greater than a specified girth are the property of the state. Cutting of trees, even on private property, is regulated by the Forest Department. The infamous forest bandit Veerappan was involved in the illegal felling of sandalwood trees from forests.

Sandalwood is the name of a class of woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for use. Both the wood and the oil produce a distinctive fragrance that has been highly valued for centuries. Consequently, the slow-growing trees have been overharvested in many areas.

Producing commercially valuable sandalwood with high levels of fragrance oils requires Santalum trees to be a minimum of 15 years old (S. album) the age at which they will be harvested in Western Australia – the yield, quality and volume are still to be clearly understood. Australia likely will be the largest producer of S. album by 2018, the majority grown around Kununurra, Western Australia. Western Australian sandalwood is also grown in plantations in its traditional growing area in the wheatbelt east of Perth, where more than 15,000 ha (37,000 acres) are in plantations. Currently, Western Australian sandalwood is only wild harvested and can achieve upwards of AU$16,000 per tonne, which has sparked a growing illegal trade speculated to be worth AU$2.5 million in 2012.