4 held with leopard skin in Sabarkantha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK



Ahmedabad/Palanpur: In the first ever sting operation carried out by the forest department, an old leopard skin, probably stolen from the royal Palace of Vijaynagar, was recovered late on Wednesday night.

In a joint operation of Intelligence Bureau officials and the forest department, four members of a gang which was into animal skin trade, were arrested.

The team, disguised as customers, met the accused to strike a deal. The accused first tried to sell the leopard skin as that of tiger and the deal began as high as Rs 15 lakh. However, when the forest officials realised that it was not tiger skin, the accused immediately brought down the price to Rs 2 lakh.

While the negotiation were on, the car in which they were travelling reached a spot where another team of IB and forest department officials was waiting for them.

Anil Johri, conservator of forest, said, “We seized the leopard skin while attempts were being made to sell it.” He said that the skin appeared to be old. It could be the one reportedly stolen from the royal place of Harshvardhan Sinhji Rathore from the royal family of Vijaynagar. He said that a police complaint in this regard was also filed by the royal family.

Officials from the department said that among those arrested were Lakshman Patel, Prakash Patel, both residents of Vijaynagar, Sabarkantha, Shyamji Patel of Amreli and Deepak Parmar of Ahmedabad. The main accused, Babu Modiya of Gardi village, is on the run. Forest department and IB have launched a hunt for Babu with the police.

Officials said several more members of the gang could be apprehended once interrogation of the four is over. He said that there is also a possibility of recovering at least four more skins from the gang.

“A leopard has 18 nails while the skin we seized had no nails. It seems the gang had sold the nails each of which usually costs Rs 50,000,” said assistant conservator of forest RM Desai.

Desai said, “We are also in touch with Rajasthan forest department and unless we catch Modiya it is difficult to say anything. Those arrested have told the forest officials that Modiya had given them the skin to be sold in the market and that is all they know.”

If 10 Gir lions die annually anyway, give 5 to us: MP to SC

Himanshu Kaushik

Ahmedabad: The MP government has reportedly stated that if an average of 10 lions die unnaturally in Gir every year, then there is no harm in Gujarat government parting with five lions for its Kuno Palpur project.

The counter affidavit filed by the MP government in Supreme Court has stated that many lions die by falling into wells, getting electrocuted or by poaching. In the last three years, eight lions have died unnaturally within Gir Sanctuary. Forest officials said the MP government has assured the court that it would give full protection to the lions being brought from Gujarat, reiterating that Kuno Palpur had adequate prey base and that the lions would not die of starvation.

The affidavit was filed in response to the affidavit of the Gujarat government which had in March opposed the move to transfer the Asiatic lions from Sasan Gir. The Gujarat Government had, in the affidavit, reiterated that tigers and lions cannot stay together.

It warned that relocating the lions from the Gir Sanctuary in Gujarat was fraught with irreparable damage to the sociology of lions and asserted that MP cannot manage the relocation as it had failed to protect its own tiger sanctuary.

The Gujarat government affidavit also

stated that the lion poaching racket in Gujarat had its roots in MP. Kuno Palpur has presence of tigers in the vicinity and hence lions and tigers cannot co-exist. Officials said the government also claimed that earlier attempts to transfer lions had failed.

However, according to officials from MP, the MP affidavit is silent on the earlier attempts to transfer lions. Also, it has failed to justify whether lions and tigers can stay together. MP has been just claiming that Kuno Palpur does not have presence of tigers, added an official.