A special team of forest officials seized a leopard skull, teeth, nails and a piece of an elephant’s tusk from a trader in a surprise raid conducted in the Megamalai range near here on Saturday.
The trader, P. Sasikumar, 42, who was arrested, is from Kombaithozhu. He was produced before a court and remanded in judicial custody. Two others, who sold the wildlife articles to him, escaped. A search is on.
Based on inputs from TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network, Anand, wildlife warden, Megamalai Wildlife Sanctuary, and his team, led by the Gandamanur Ranger, apprehended the accused while he was trying to trade parts of the leopard and the elephant, said Nihar Ranjan, Chief Conservator of Forests, Madurai.
Going by the seized parts and the confession statement, it looks like he was trading in old trophies, Mr. Ranjan said. No incident of hunting has been reported so far. The accused revealed information about the person from whom he had bought the articles. Further investigation was on to arrest the co-accused in this connection, he said.
According to sources, the forest officials laid a trap for the accused after coming to know that he was involved in wildlife trade. They monitored him for a few months before apprehending him on Friday.
Activists said the age of the big cat could be known only after laboratory tests are conducted in the Wildlife Institute of India or the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
They demanded that the Megamalai Wildlife Sanctuary, where a series of violations had been reported over the past one year, should be brought under the scanner.