2 held in Odisha's Keonjhar Forest Division for smuggling elephant tusks
BHUBANESWAR: The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police and Keonjhar forest division have arrested two wildlife criminals on charges of possessing and smuggling elephant tusks. The accused Ramakanta Pradhan (38) and Anama Munda (35) are from Kalanda village under Raisuan in Keonjhar.
Acting on intelligence inputs, an STF team along with Keonjhar forest officials nabbed Ramakanta red-handed with the two elephant tusks weighing 5.662 kg from Patung-Kalanda road on Sunday.
The team also seized several incriminating materials from Ramakanta’s possession. As the accused could not produce documents in support of the possession of the wildlife items, he was arrested and handed over to the Keonjhar division, STF officials said.
The recovered items were also handed over to the Keonjhar division for further investigation. Later a team of Keonjhar forest division interrogated the accused and came to know about involvement of two others in smuggling of the tusks. They then nabbed Anama on Sunday night.
DFO Dhamdhere Dhanraj Hanumant said efforts are on to arrest the third accused who is suspected to be the prime suspect in the case. Preliminary findings suggest that the tusks recovered from the accused are two years old.
STF officials said in the special drives against the wildlife criminals and poachers launched since 2020, they have seized at least 25 leopard skin, 15 elephant tusks, seven deer skins, 11 pangolin, 19.5 kg pangolin scales, two leopard teeth and 29 leopard claws along with 46 parrots. Around 59 persons have been arrested during these seizures, they said.