An attempt was made to cut and smuggle logs of a 10-year-old sandalwood tree at Shivaram Nagar in the small hours of Sunday but the smugglers had to give up and flee as alert residents woke up to the sound of the saw.
According to sources, the smugglers had cut the 10- to 15-foot-tall tree which stood near a road in the residential colony.
ResidentsAs they were about to complete the process, the residents woke up and that sent those responsible running away from the place.
They had dropped the cut logs, which the Ramanathapuram Police took away for investigation. The tree-cutting incident on Sunday happened hardly 500 m away from the place where sandalwood smugglers had cut trees from a farm in the area a fortnight or so ago.
The Police said that they were yet to register a case in this connection.
