Chittagong, Nov 24 (BDNEWS) - Detectives of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) in a mid-night swoop arrested seven persons for cutting off hills illegally from city's Bahadur Nagar area under Khulshi police station on Wednesday.

Acting on a secret information, a team of detective police lay in wait and nabbed the seven persons red-handed while cutting down hills. They were loading earth on trucks.

The arrested are Mohammad Belal, Bullet, Mohammad Ibrahim, Babul Islam, Abu Bakar Siddik, Mohammad Sumon and Shahajahan with spade and other cutting instruments.

Although the government banned the cutting of hill since 2001, such activities are still going on allegedly in collusion with the police.

At least one hundred hillocks in Chittagong had been destroyed in the past three decades.

According to a survey by the geography department of the Chittagong University the total number of hills declined from 25 to 12.

A case was filed with Khulshi police station in this connection.

BDNEWS/1845 hrs