India: The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested two alleged animal skin smugglers from Dalanwala in Dehradun on Saturday and recovered two leopard skins, worth Rs 14 lakh from their possession.

The arrested men were identified as Vivek Parmar, resident of Old Survey Road and Sudhir Malhotra from Legend Valley on Rajpur Road. The skins were recovered from Parmar's house during a raid conducted by the STF team.

"We had information that rare wild animal skins and parts are being smuggled from Dalanwala. A team was set up and two people have been nabbed in this connection," said senior superintendent of police (SSP) STF Renuka Devi.

The leopard skins are almost 8 feet in length each and are believed to have been brought from hills of Garhwal. "The skins are over a year old, which suggests the leopards were killed a year ago," said Renuka Devi.

The SSP added that Parmar was earlier arrested for selling keeda jadi - a rare high altitude Himalayan herb.

(Source: Times of India)