India: A joint team of Varanasi police and Special Task Force (STF) unearthed a gang smuggling rare species Pangolin by arresting ten persons and recovering a live creature from a hotel room in Sigra police station area of Varanasi on Sunday afternoon.

Those arrested were identified as Surendra Kumar Gupta of Sonbhadra, Mohamed Shahzad, Shamim Akhtar and Aquil Ahmad, trio of Varanasi, Madnesh Kumar Singh, Kishore Jha, Ashok Kumar, Brij Mohan Singh, Mahesh Kumar and Sandeep Kumar, all of Bihar.

As per reports, the Wild Life Crime Bureau, New Delhi provided the tip off about the smuggling requesting the STF to work out the case. Subsequently, a team consisting STF sleuths, Wild life officials and Varanasi police was formed and it raided room number 309 of Hotel Priya in Sigra police station area of Varanasi around 3 pm on Sunday. 

The prime accused Surendra Kumar Gupta of Sonbhadra disclosed that he caught the creature from forest area in Pannuganj of the district and was to sell to a man when he was arrested. 

The police told that Interpol had identified Pangolin to be at top in the list of creatures smuggled at international level.  The creature is under schedule 1 of the rare species and the Wild Life department is very concerned over the decrease in the number of Pangolins. Wild Life officials said there are two species of Pangolin in India-one found in North East part of the country and is called as Chinese Pangolin while those found remaining part of the country is called as Indian Pangolin. They told that Pangolins are much in demand in countries like China, Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia and are mostly used in manufacturing drugs/ stimulants and jackets. They said the smugglers are active in poaching Pangolin in forest areas in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.

(Source: The Daily pioneer)