Bangalore : Two hundred and twenty bags of spurious ‘urea’ fertilizer were seized in two different places in and around Vaniyambadi by officials of the agricultural department and the police from Bellary and Hassan districts in Karnataka following complaints from farmers about the poor quality of the fertilizers supplied to them.

According to police sources in Vaniyambadi, investigations by the Karnataka police led them to a wholesale dealer in Hassan district who sourced the spurious fertilizer from Vaniyambadi area. The agricultural department officials in Belur in Hassan district who examined the fertilizers found them to be spurious.

The Bellary and Hassan district police arrested Devaraj of Pudur in Vaniyambadi. On his information, the police, along with the Karnataka agriculture department officials seized 104 bags of the spurious fertilizer from Mallanguppam village near Vaniyambadi and 116 bags of the illicit stuff from a godown in Vaniyambadi.

On the information of Devaraj, the Karnataka police arrested two more persons, Babu and Venkatesan who were involved in the racket, and are on the lookout for two more.

Investigations revealed that the arrested persons gathered the waste salt dumped in the Palar River by the suppliers of animals skin hides to tanneries in and around Vaniyambadi.

The accused collected the salt, mixed them with other chemicals, packed them in spurious bags procured from Tirupur, bearing the names of reputed companies, and sold them as urea to wholesalers in Karnataka who in turn sold them to farmers. Source : The Hindu