
ROURKELA: Forest officials arrested 11 persons and recovered two elephant tusks weighing around three kg from their possession on Wednesday. Divisional forest officer (DFO) of Rourkela Jaswant Sethi said acting on a tip off about the sale of two ivories, a forest team raided the house of one Rameshwar Naik (51) at Bargaon under Banki range within K Balang police limits. Naik was arrested and the two tusks were seized.
Seven other accused persons of Sundargarh and Keonjhar, who were present in Naik’s house, were also arrested. The DFO said information provided by them further led to the arrest of three more accused from Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts. All the accused were produced in Bonai sub-divisional court.