BHUBANESWAR: Special Task Force (STF) of Crime Branch arrested a Panchayat Samiti (PS) member from Nayagarh district for allegedly selling leopard skins and animal bones. The STF officers also seized two leopard hides along with animal bones from his possession. Acting on a tip-off, the agency sleuths conducted a raid near Maninag forest within Ranpur police limits on Friday evening and nabbed PS member Laxmidhar Nayak of Jamuganda village in the district. 

“A case has been registered under Sections 379 and 411 of IPC and Section 51 of Wild Life (Protection) Act. The accused was produced before a court in Ranpur on Saturday,” said STF DIG Jai Narayan Pankaj. “The seized skins and animal bones will be sent to Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for examination and further probe into the matter is on,” said Pankaj. 

STF recently arrested two persons, including a lecturer of a private college, and seized two leopard and two deer skins when they were allegedly planning to sell it to some customers near Giripuja forest in Daspalla. Sources said the police received some credible clue about the illegal trade of leopard skins in Nayagarh from the two accused and conducted a raid again in the district.