DEHRADUN: Two residents of Uttarkashi district, who were involved in the illegal activity of animal poaching and smuggling of skins, were arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttarakhand police on Monday. Two leopard skins, said to be worth Rs 12 lakhs in the international market, were seized from the duo arrested from the Clement Town area of Dehradun.
The two arrested were identified as Babu Ram Uniyal, a resident of Kot village in Uttarkashi, and Himalayan Sherpa, who is from Dang village of the same district. The poachers were arrested while they were on way to deliver the consignment to a client in Dehradun.
Giving the information, a source in the STF told TOI, "For long we had been receiving inputs about the killing of animals in the higher reaches of the state to sell their skin and bones in Nepal and Tibet." Acting on the information, the STF unit tracked the duo and arrested them on confirmation about them carrying the leopard skins.
"We are questioning the two about their links and clients. We suspect that the duo had killed the leopard in the higher reaches," said the source.
