Retired forest officer and brother-in-law of DySP of CID forest cell have been arrested for illegally trading in elephant tusks
Retired forest officer Subrai Verma who was an Assistant Conservator of Forest, Karnataka, Sudesh, brother-in-law of Karnataka CID Forest Department's Deputy Superintendent Of Police and two others were arrested by Karnataka police. The gang was busted for running an elephant tusk trade worth crores.
The accused persons were arrested based on a tip-off by informants that there is a possible elephant tusk trade under the pretext of donating it. The accused persons MS Verma and Kiran Poojari, an elephant owner, colluded together and created documents to make the trade look like a simple act of donation. But the police say that the arrested persons did not have an answer when asked about permissions for shifting the tusks from Coastal Karnataka to Bengaluru.
The informants say that CID Deputy Inspector of Police, Kashi who is aware of the case is said to have pressurised the concerned police station to drop charges against his brother-in-law.
A senior police officer said that the accused used Verma's vehicle, and showed Poojari's documents of possession of tusks. But he did not have any documents to donate the goods nor the necessary papers to transport the tusks from Ujjire in Mangaluru. During the course of the investigation, it was found that the accused used the same documents to trade in different tusks. Hence it is evident that they wanted to trade the tusks illegally.
Frustrated with such a development several activists approached union minister and a known animal lover, Menaka Gandhi to look into the matter.
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