Elephant tusks, huge stock of animal parts seized in Belagavi (India)

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Web India 123

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The City Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) and Forest Department raided a house and seized a huge stock of animal parts, including a pair of tusks of an young elephant, antlers, scales of pangolin from a house under Market Police Station limits here today.

The seizure is stated to be worth crores of rupees in the international market. The trade of wildlife products is banned, as per the Wildlife Protect Act, 1972.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Amarnath Reddy told mediapersons here that acting on a tip-off, the police and forest personnel raided the house and seized the wildlife body parts and arrested the accused Salim Soudagar (45) alias Chamadewala (leather trader), a resident of Kotwal galli, who also owns a house in Shettigalli.

As per preliminary investigation, the accused, who is a traditional leather trader has claimed that the antlers, pangolin scales and tusks were stored over several years, even by his father. At times, these products were sold to buyers in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Police was still questioning the accused at the time of filing this report.

“Two Elephant Ivory, Deer horns (jinke, Kadave Kombu) Tigers fingers, Pengolian shells (Chippu Handi covers) were recovered in the raid. All these material are approximately 35-year-old and in damaged position,” Deputy conservative of forest (DCF) B V Patil told UNI here this evening.

The investigation was in progress, the DCF added.

 

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