KOLKATA: The forest department and police recovered elephant tusks and rhino horn worth lakhs following raids in various parts of north Bengal. The operation carried out on Monday has also netted five members of the gang involved in smuggling animal parts. Police and forest officers are interrogating them to trace the kingpin and also discover leads to poachers.
Divisional forest officer of Jalpaiguri, Bidyut Sarkar, said that of the 6 kg tusks recovered, only three-and-a-half kgs were found to be original. "The rest was fake. We will also have to check whether the rhino is original," he said.
Forests in north Bengal have witnessed a sudden spike in rhino deaths in the last couple of years, most of them due to poaching.
Following the raid, five persons - all residents of the area- were arrested from Malbazar, Matigara and Jalpaiguri. They have been identified as Amal Mandal, Tunai Kerkata, Anil Tamang, Dipraj Das and Dipak Prasad. While there were reports that one of them is a contractual worker with a state power utility, the forest department officials refused to confirm this.
A forest department official said two persons were arrested on Monday morning while they were trying to sell the tusks in a market near Malbazar. "We caught them red-handed and came to know about the involvement of the others. The rest of the three persons were arrested late on Monday night," he said.
It may be noted that on Sunday, the carcass of a rhino with its horn missing was found on the Mahananda-Kurseong border. The forest department officials were on high alert ever since the incident was reported. A source said that the foresters will also grill the arrested persons to find out if they have any links to Sunday's incident.
It was the lone rhino of the Mahananda wildlife sanctuary that had sneaked into the forests there from Gorumara in 2010. Another rhino from Gorumara had moved into Baikunthapur in the same year.
