A Kerala forest department team is in Calcutta with a production warrant, issued by a Kochi court, for an ivory trader arrested on Monday with two pieces of elephant tusks in his car.
Sudheesh Chandra Babu, 67, who traces his roots to Kerala, was arrested on Kona Expressway while he was headed home to Kasba with his daughter Amitha SC Babu, 37.
A raid on their rented home yielded several ivory statuettes whose combined worth would be several crores, a forest department official had said after their arrest.
Sudheesh’s wife, who goes by the moniker Calcutta Thankachi (sister), is wanted in a 2015 elephant poaching case in Kerala. She and her son are absconding, a wildlife crime control bureau official had said.
A purported confession in 2015 of a former forest department cook who moonlighted as a guide for poachers led to the arrest of 50 people, seizure of more than 400kg of ivory and the family’s involvement, a Kerala forest department official said.
The family procured tusks and hired artisans from Kerala to make ivory products, which were sold to customers in India and abroad, the official claimed. “But they managed to give law enforcement agencies the slip for the past three years by continuously shifting base.”
A Delhi-based ivory trader was arrested in Delhi in October 2015 based on leads forest sleuths got in the poaching case. More than 480kg of ivory was seized from the East Delhi house of the trader, Umesh Yadav.
“Yadav and Thankachi were business rivals; both big dealers of finished ivory products like statuettes and jewellery,” the official said.
Sudheesh’s family rented an apartment in Kasba three years ago and is suspected to have a client base in the city.
The Presidency jail authorities have to present the warrant in Bankshall court and, if it grants permission, produce the accused in the Kerala court.
“More than 100 inmates are taken to court from the jail every day. Scores of production warrants are handled each day and I cannot comment on an individual case,” Presidency jail superintendent Suprakash Roy said.
