Police recover consignment worth Rs 20 lakh
Police recover consignment worth Rs 20 lakh
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"Our team received information about certain suspicious persons carrying around venom of cobra and other snakes illegally. Our officers immediately informed the wildlife department and laid a trap to arrest the suspects. Our team encircled the place and at about 7.30 pm two persons came from Azadpur Chowk.u00a0
On a specific tip-off received from an informer the team arrested the two accused. The police team recovered two plastic bottles containing 285 gm of venom from them. Both the accused were arrested and a case (FIR No. 200/10 u/s. 39/44/49/51 Wild Life Protection Act, 1972) was registered at the police station in Adarsh Nagar," said a police officer.
During the interrogation the accused revealed that they were supposed to deliver the consignment to a person named Harish in Delhi, and they were promised good money. "The accused revealed that they were promised 20 lakh rupees for the merchandise. We are now searching for Harish, apparently a trader of snake venom," the officer added.
The accused M V Rao runs a business of seed processing in Indore and Anil Jain is a qualified engineer and has a degree of Bachelor of Engineering.
UNDER THE HOOD
A snake charmer was arrested on July 18 from Punjab for selling endangered black cobras and bird species. He would sell the venom to representatives of pharmaceutical companies in several states, police said. Ramesh Nath Feroze, a resident of a slum rehabilitation area in Morinda town of Ropar district, about 40 km from Chandigarh, was held during a joint operation of Ropar police and representatives of People For Animals (PFA).
Endangered species of 15 black cobras and a pair of birds were recovered from his possession.
"An employee of a Noida-based pharmaceutical company was arrested few weeks back in New Delhi. During questioning he disclosed that he was getting venom from Feroze. Following this, we approached the Punjab Police to unearth this illegal trade," PFA (Chandigarh unit) representative Chetan Sharma told reporters. PFA officials approached Feroze posing as decoy customers and expressed their desire to buy black cobras. The deal was struck for Rs 11 lakh for 11 black cobras.
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