Madurai
A special team of forest officials from Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Kochi and Dindigul, nabbed two persons who had reportedly claimed to have leopard skin near Batlagundu on Saturday.
An official from the Forest department said that acting on a specific intelligence about a gang attempting to sell leopard skin, the Crime Control Bureau officials and the local forest personnel laid a trap to them.
Posing themselves to be buyers of the leopard skin, the team engaged the gang on talks near the Pattiveranpatti road junction on Theni-Dindigul by-pass road. Even as the negotiation was going on, the gang, said to be consisting of three members, smelt that they were being trapped and tried to escape, a police source said.
The forest officials chased and nabbed one of them. One of the other two members bit the hand of one of the forest personnel and the duo escaped on a car. After a chase, the car was intercepted at Ganguvarpatti check-post. However, another person fled from the scene.
The Forest officials could not seize any skin from them, said the forest official. The duo were being interrogated.