College lecturer among two held with leopard, deer skins in Nayagarh

BHUBANESWAR: The special task force (STF) of the Crime Branch on Monday arrested two persons, including a lecturer at a private arts college, in a forest in Nayagarh district on charges of smuggling wildlife organs. The STF seized two leopard skins and two spotted-deer skins from the accused, who were identified as Pratap Kumar Nayak (24) and Kishore Chandra Dehury (29).Dehury teaches in a college in Nayagarh.
Sources said the accused were about to strike a deal to sell the expensive skins in Giripuja forest in Dasapalla area when the STF sleuths swooped down on them. The accused, who are residents of Nayagarh district, planned to sell each leopard skin for Rs 7 lakh and deer skin for Rs 1 lakh. The STF came to know that a man from Dasapalla had contacted the two smugglers to buy the animal skins to decorate his home.
“We are trying to find how the accused came by the leopard and deer skins. It is not yet clear whether they killed the animals. During interrogation, they claimed that a tribal poacher had sold the animal skins to them for a few thousand rupees. We will take the accused in remand for questioning,” STF’s deputy inspector-general J N Pankaj told TOI.
The STF will send the seized animal skins to the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, for forensic examination. “The chemical or forensic test will ascertain the species and age of the animals as well as the nature of death. We found some holes in one of the leopard skins, and think the animal may have been gunned down by poachers. The other leopard’s ankle was broken, indicating it may have been caught in a trap,” Pankaj said.
In the past one and a half years, the STF has dismantled three big wildlife organ smuggling rackets in the state. In November 2019, it had arrested three persons in Kalahandi district and seized a leopard skin and ivory from them. In July 2019, the STF had arrested a jail warder and a police havildar for alleged links with a leopard smuggling racket in Deogarh district. In March last year, STF personnel had seized four leopard skins from the Kuchinda area in Sambalpur district and arrested ten persons in phases.