BHUBANESWAR: In a major crackdown on illegal possession of scheduled wildlife species and their unlawful display on social media, the Wildlife Wing of the Forest department on Monday arrested a man from Bhadrak, with millions of followers on different digital platforms, for allegedly possessing two snakes and sharing the rescue videos of the reptile on internet in violation of Wildlife Protection Act - 1972.
The accused Mirza Md Arif is from Kajimahala area of Purnunabazar in Bhadark and has over 2.82 million followers on YouTube and 1.44 lakh on Facebook.
Forest officials said Arif, who claimed to be a trained snake rescuer, illegally possessed two monocled cobras, a scheduled species protected under Wildlife Protection Act, during a raid by Bhadrak wildlife division. Besides, his regular posts on social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook also violated the Wildlife Protection Act, they said.
The state government had issued an order on March 15 making it clear that people posting selfies, photographs and other such materials with scheduled wildlife species, their body parts or trophies amounts to violation of the Wildlife Protection Act and is a punishable offence with imprisonment up to seven years.
Forest officials said Arif used to post rescue videos of snake and other wildlife species on social media platforms on a regular basis. His videos attracted lakhs and crores of views on YouTube.
Principal chief conservator of forests (Wildlife) and chief wildlife warden Susanta Nanda said the accused had given an undertaking to the Forest department recently to abide by the guidelines issued for the snake handlers by the Wildlife Wing.
Arif told DFO, Bhadrak (Wildlife) Division, he will delete all the posts that he had uploaded on social media. Despite the undertaking, he failed to do so, the chief wildlife warden said adding the Forest department has asked the social media platforms concerned to suspend the account of the accused.
“One such platform has already suspended his account, while we are pursuing the others,” Nanda said while making it clear in the event of any reluctance, the concerned service provider of the platform will also be summoned. Further investigation into the matter is on.