A team of forest department officials seized a large number of deer antlers and other wild animal body parts from an office-cum-warehouse on Phears Lane on Thursday night.
It took the team over six hours to separate the 945 antlers into bunches.
An initial inspection revealed that the antlers belong to a variety of deer species, including sambar, spotted deer and brow-antlered deer.
The haul is among the largest in the state in recent times, a forest department official said.
The team arrested Burrabazar resident Manawwar Ali, a director of the import-export firm that operated from the warehouse on Phears Lane that was raided.
“I cannot recall a time when such a huge number of antlers were seized in a single raid,” said Kalyan Rai, deputy conservator of forests, headquarters, wildlife division, Kolkata.
A senior forest department official said they raided the warehouse-cum-office of the import-export firm based on a tip-off that a large consignment of antlers was stashed there.
“The antlers look like they had been stored at the warehouse for some time. These are not from fresh kills. We are trying to find why they had been stashed here and where they were headed,” the official said.
Manoj Kumar Josh, a deputy ranger of the state forest department, said during Ali’s questioning, he told foresters that the antlers had been stashed by one of his relatives.
“We are trying to track down this relative,” said Josh.
Ali was produced before a city court on Friday. He has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days.