A turtle swimming in a pool in the mansion of Jamaluddin Sardar, an alleged Trinamool Congress strongman in Sonarpur who has been accused of assaulting men and women, was beamed by TV news channels throughout Wednesday.

The images prompted the forest department to send two teams to the mansion, on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Both teams, however, returned empty-handed as the mansion was locked.

“Keeping a turtle as a pet is illegal. We have information that at least two turtles are in the mansion. They have been identified as Indian softshell turtles (Nilssonia gangetica). The species is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act,” said Milan Mandal, the divisional forest officer of the South 24-Parganas forest division.

Killing them can invite a jail term of three to seven years, said a forest official. Keeping them as pets is also punishable under the wildlife act, the official said.

The forest teams went to Sardar’s house from the Baruipur range office. The first team reached his house around 10pm on Wednesday. But the gates were locked. The team, which had nets and a bag to bring the turtles out of water, returned after waiting for over 90 minutes.

A second team visited the house on Thursday morning but returned empty-handed again.

The police on Wednesday raided the house of Sardar and found it locked and empty. The house, which stands in a sprawling compound, has 50-odd CCTV cameras. Several bamboo sticks, shackles and iron chains were found in the house. The police suspect those were used to confine people, as alleged by several residents of the neighbourhood.

Sardar would allegedly preside over kangaroo courts to “resolve” local disputes and punish people at will.

A woman alleged on Wednesday that Sardar had hung her husband upside down from the ceiling of his house and also assaulted her after he refused to participate in a kangaroo court allegedly held by the accused.

“We have asked the police for cooperation. When the house is opened, we will have the turtles rescued,” said Mandal.

A search and seizure operation by a law enforcement agency is usually carried out in the presence of a neutral witness. “Otherwise, there could be allegations of evidence being planted to frame an accused,” said a police officer.

Trading in and killing of turtles is banned but turtle meat, considered a delicacy by many, continues to be sold on the sly across the state, especially in North and South 24-Parganas and Howrah.

The trade in turtles sees a spike in winter, said forest officials.

“The soft shell turtles are regularly sourced from Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring areas, where they are randomly caught. Most of the catch is later supplied to our state,” he said.