In a major crackdown against poachers and illegal traders of body parts of wild animals, forest officials arrested four people at the Similipal forest in Odisha and seized the skin and nails of a juvenile melanistic Royal Bengal Tiger from them, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The arrest and seizure were made on Sunday during the crackdown by the special enforcement wing of Similipal South Wildlife Division, at Tentula and Balighat villages within limits of the Udala Police Station under Baripada Forest Division, the field director of Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR), Prakash Chand Gogineni, said.

The case is under investigation and other people linked to the incident are absconding, Gogineni said the state-level Joint Task Force (JTF) is supporting the Similipal team in a thorough investigation into the matter.

The official was, however, silent on the source of the melanistic tiger. He said the four accused held in the case were produced before the court on January 13 and sent to jail.

The accused are residents of Tentala village under the jurisdiction of the Udala Police Station, he said.

The four were arrested while attempting to negotiate the sale of the tiger skin.

With the seizure of the tiger skin, it is suspected that the animal was killed in Similipal as it is the only place in India where melanistic tigers are found.

Melanistic tigers appear black because of a genetic condition.

Sources said that the seizure of the tiger skin was followed by the arrest of some people in Balasore district recently and tiger claws were recovered from them.

The interrogation of the people arrested in Balasore reportedly led to the seizure of the tiger skin, sources said.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.