COIMBATORE: Coimbatore forest range officers on Sunday arrested four people, including an IT employee, at Ramnagar near Gandhipuram for allegedly trying to sell a tusk, and the claws and teeth of a leopard.
A team led by Coimbatore forest range officer V Thirumurugan arrested IT employee S Kiruba (24), R Sathish Kumar (26), K Vijayan (45) and M Gowtham (26). Vijayan hails from Perambalur, and others are from Mettur in Salem district.
Based on a tip-off, the officers posed as buyers and asked the gang to come to Ramnagar to “finalise the deal”.
“We received information that Kiruba had procured a tusk from Kerala and we approached him with an offer of Rs 2 lakh. We told him to come to Ramnagar with the tusk. We arrested them and also seized 20 claws and teeth of a leopard from the gang,” an officer said.
“All the four are first-time offenders. They decided to sell animal parts to clear their debts but did not have an idea about their value. We will send the tusk, leopard claws and teeth to the Advanced Institute for Wildlife Conservation (AIWC) through the court to verify whether the leopard claws and teeth belong to the same leopard or different animals and also to check if the tusk is real or fake,” the officer added.
All four have been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and remanded to custody.
The officer suspects more people may be involved in the offence.