Inter-state wildlife racket busted

An illegal wildlife trader, whose network has reportedly abetted the killing of around 600 tigers across the country in the last 15 years, was arrested by the Karnataka CID Forest Cell sleuths in Hyderabad on Sunday night.

The arrested trader, 69-year-old Abdul Khadir Chowdhary, is said to be one of the top illegal wildlife traders in south India.

Speaking to the Business Standard, Inspector General of Police (Forest Cell) K S N Chikkerur said: "He had come under our scanner four years ago, but he remained elusive. We intensified our chase two months ago after getting definite clues about his involvement in wildlife trade."

Chowdhary's arrest is a pointer to the inter-state links between wildlife traders and poachers in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. According to Chikkerur, Chowdhary was part of the network run by Allahabad-based trader Shabeer Hasan Quereshi and Prabhakar Keshav Gajakhosh, a resident of Hubli in the state.

While Shabeer was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Task Force with a booty of three tiger skins and 75 kg of tiger bones on December 6, Gajakhosh fell into the Forest Cell dragnet on December 13 while in possession of one tiger skin, 21 leopard skins and 44 otter skins.

Chikkerur said: "Preliminary investigations have revealed that Chowdhary and Shabeer have been in the wildlife trade business for over a decade. The network used to procure skins from members of the Katni gang, which consists of hunting tribes in Madhya Pradesh.'' The skins are exported to the wildlife markets in South-East Asia.

Though Chikkerur refused to spell out how many tigers have fallen prey to the network, officials who were instrumental in nabbing Chowdhary estimate the number to be around 600. The value of these tiger skins runs into millions of rupees.