A deer skin, two antlers, a tiger tooth, a porcupine skull and body parts of a variety of birds have been seized from a house in Nagerbazar in northeast Kolkata, an official in the state forest department that raided the building late on Wednesday said.
Three men who officials said were inside the house — Arijit Gupta, 44, Rakhal Chandra Roychoudhury, 68, and Dulal Adhikary, 45 — were arrested as they allegedly failed to give any valid explanation for the presence of the items in the house or produce any document related to them.
Raju Sarkar, divisional forest officer, North 24-Parganas district, said they had received an alert about the men keeping a menagerie of wild animal parts in the house.
“We found the parts from wild animals inside a puja room. The men could not produce any documents for the items. Nor could they give any valid explanation why those items were kept in the house,” Sarkar said.
Possessing a wildlife item even as part of the family heirloom without a licence is a crime.
“The forest department had repeatedly announced that anyone possessing any wildlife item should apply to the department for a licence. There was a window during which such licences were issued,” the official said.
“Anyone possessing a wildlife item or a body part of any wild animal without a licence should hand it to the forest department. The individual should write to the chief wildlife warden for surrendering the item.”
According to the official, the seized deer skin, antlers and the tiger tooth are worth several lakhs of rupees in illegal wildlife markets.
“We have started an investigation to find out how the men procured those items as they are not easy to come by. These animals must have been killed at some point before their body parts were removed,” said the official.
Kolkata and its suburbs are often chosen by those involved in Illegal wildlife trade because of the close proximity with countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, from where wild animals as well as body parts are trafficked to places across southeast Asia.
“It is well known that animal parts are used in the preparation of traditional Chinese medicines,” the forest department official said.
All the arrested men have been charged under various sections of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Six arrested for call centre fraud
Salt Lake: Six men were arrested from a call centre in Salt Lake on Thursday for allegedly duping foreign nationals and people across India by posing as officials of software and anti-virus companies.
The men were arrested from a BJ Block house while they were placing calls abroad posing as software company officials in a bid to dupe them, police said.
Cops sealed the call centre and seized several computers and hard disks. A probe has been started.