Monday, 25 December 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Kumaon unit of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) along with Delhi’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) and forest department nabbed a wildlife smuggler with two musk deer pods from Udham Singh Nagar’s Khatima-Pilibhit road on Saturday. The accused has been identified as Purne Vishwakarma alias Hariom, a resident of Nepal’s Doti district who was attempting to transport two musk deer pods from Nepal into India for illegal trade, said the senior superintendent of police of STF Ayush Agrawal. He said that the STF received a tip on Saturday morning that a Nepalese smuggler was arriving in Khatima with two musk pods.
The team led by STF circle officer of the Kumaon unit Sumit Pandey along with a joint team comprising WCCB and Terai East forest division of Haldwani nabbed him the same day and recovered two musk pods weighing 64.55 grammes. Agrawal said that the accused Vishwakarma has confessed to planning to sell the two musk pods in Haryana. He claimed that he had brought the musk pods from a man named Puran in Nepal who allegedly killed two deer and extracted their musk pods. He had been allegedly involved in wildlife smuggling for a long time and have been to the country for illegal trading several times in the past too.
SSP said that a case has been registered against him by the forest department in Khatima. Aggarwal said that this is the seventh biggest action of STF in the wildlife sector this year. He said that STF is the nodal agency to handle wildlife crimes in the State and is actively working with other authorities concerned to act against wildlife smuggling. He also appealed to the public to inform authorities regarding such smugglers and associated crimes or call STF at 01352656202.
