Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh) :
A leopard skin measuring 5-feet-long, an air pistol, a sword and the car in which they were traveling were seized by police, when they were on their way to sell the skin to a decoy customer.
The accused, Ravi Pandey and Kuldeep Kumar were booked under various sections of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and section 25 of the Arms Act, after they tried to flee. The arrest was facilitated by a WTI operative, who was in touch with them to clinch the deal.
Both of them were natives of a small town Baikunthpur, in the Koriya district of the central Indian Chhattisgarh state.
“The decoy customer had promised them to pay extra money on the skin, which tempted them to sell.” WTI’s Joydeep Bose said in New Delhi.
“Being old hands in the trade, the accused gave a tough time to the officials, who repeatedly changed their locations for the final hand over.
They even set up their own watch team to determine if the customer was genuine.” Ashok Kumar who heads the enforcement team in WTI said.
“They asked me to follow them to their car where the skin was kept. When they were showing the skin, which was neatly wrapped in a paper, the police team who was following us quickly surrounded the car. In the commotion the accused pulled out an air pistol to scare them away, but police finally managed to catch them,” the operative who went as a decoy customer said.
Leopards are a Schedule I species in the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, which prohibits their killing and trade in their body parts.
“In India poaching for leopard skin is ten times higher than the tiger, which is a serious concern,” Kumar said.
Chhattisgarh is one of the richest wildlife regions in the country, with 3 National Parks and 11 wildlife sanctuaries and forests covering nearly 44 per cent of the state.
