RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh forest department on Thursday traced the two tusks of jumbo that was found dead at Raghunath in Balrampur forest division, about 350 km north of Raipur. Eight people have been taken into custody by the forest department.
“The forest department acted swiftly. Through its local intelligence network in the area and preliminary inquiry the forest team found 11 persons apparently involved in removing the two tusks of the wild elephant found dead. The tusks have been recovered”, said Atul Shukla, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife).
The wild pachyderm was killed after it came into contact with a live wire trap laid by local villagers who claimed that they often plant such electric wires to hunt wild boar for their feast.
“It appears the wild elephant had been killed about 10 days ago. Teams were constituted and after a preliminary investigation in the three nearby villages, we learnt 11 miscreants were involved in taking away the tusks of the dead elephant. Seven were taken into custody and later the key culprit who escaped to Madhya Pradesh was also nabbed. On their inputs, the tusks kept buried in a village in Balrampur, were recovered,” the Balrampur divisional forest officer Pranay Mishra told the Express.
All the eight were produced before the court and sent on police remand. Three others are still absconding.
“We will further interrogate them to find out their trade linkage. The international price of tusk/ivory is Rs 4.2 lakh per kg,” Mishra stated. The weight of the two recovered tusks is around 32 kg.
The exact cause of death of wild tusker would be known after a detailed post-mortem report, the officer added.
As many as seven out of the 27 districts of Chhattisgarh are witnessing an increased human-elephant conflict.