GUJRAT, March 31: After stealing a huge quantity of Shisham and other trees of the provincial forest department, the timber mafia has now illegally felled Alba Morass and other green trees worth over Rs2 million from the area of the district forest department.

Sources claimed that the district government under the supervision of EDO (agriculture) Shahid Rashid Awan had given contract of around 25 lots of trees to different contractors. Each lot contains dozens of trees located on rural routes, including Awan Sharif, Karrianwala, Tanda, Dinga, Jaura, Karnana, Kotla Arab Ali Khan and Jalalpur Jattan roads.

They said the mafia with the connivance of district forest officer Moazzam Saeed had cut hundreds of Alba Morass and other green trees from almost all the auctioned lots of trees.

They said the DFO had also tampered with the official record to conceal the theft.

The mafia had been active in the limits of the district forest department for the last many months. The district administration has failed to take action against it which is depriving Gujrat of Alba Morass and other green trees with the alleged abetment of the DFO.

Sources said the mafia is now eying the fresh auction of trees scheduled for April.

When contacted, DFO Saeed denied his link with the mafia and expressed his ignorance about the theft of trees from his jurisdiction. He also denied tampering with the official record.

He said all the work was done according to the merit.

EDO Awan admitted that he had received information in advance that the mafia was in a bid to steal the timber during the recently held auction of trees.

He said he made a study of the auction and got information that a contractor had got contract of around 98 trees against higher bids near Karnana and was in a bid to steal trees.

He said he forbade the contractor to cut the trees with a direction to the DFO to make arrangements to mark the trees which the contractor would cut in his presence.

He said the cutting was still pending due to official work.

He said he would look into the matter and take action if the theft was proved.