Port Blair, Oct 10: The CID team of Andaman and Nicobar Police have cracked many crucial cases in recent past, including the high profile explosive case and now the CID team has seized three pieces of elephant tusks worth Rs. 1.70 crore.
This is high time for Lt. Governor, CS and DGP to think about giving promotion to all the hard working staffs of CID department, a honour which they deserve.
In Elephant tusk case, On 28/09/12, on receipt of credible information about the trading of Elephant tusk by some people of Diglipur area, a special team comprising of S.I N. Zainuddin, HC K. Venkat Rao and PC Uday Kumaran of PS CCS and S.I Sanjay Kumar, HC Sasi Kumar, HC Gunashekran of Special Branch CID and HC M. Shyam of Dog Squad Unit proceeded to North & Middle Andaman. After reaching the spot at Hari Bay situated on the ATR Road in the dense forest, a Getz car bearing Registration No. AN 01 E 6506 and a Scorpio vehicle were present.
At about 1130 hrs, the police party recovered 3 pieces of elephant tusk measuring – 1 stpiece length -2.5 meter weight 21.800 Kg, 2 nd piece length 1.5 meter weight- 15.200 Kgs and 3rd piece length- 86 cm weight 5.500 Kg, total weight -42.500 Kgs from the possession of four persons namely Mr. Probir Kumar Bala R/o Subashgram, Mrs. Seema Halder R/o Subasgram, Mr. Sanjay Gain R/o Laxmipur and Mr.Ratan Biswas R/o Radhanagar, but some persons taking the advantage of darkness, were managed to flee from the spot on a Scorpio Vehicle towards Diglipur.
Accordingly, above all these people were detained for further enquiry. On inspection of above Getz Car by the police party, a spring weighing machine was also recovered.
Meanwhile, information about the people in the Scorpio vehicle was conveyed to I/C OP Kishori Nagar to put up a barricade to stop them but they were not been apprehended so far. Thereafter, on 29/09/12 at 0300 hrs, all the recovered properties were seized u/s 51 Wild Life Protection Act, 1972 under cover of a seizure memo On enquiry the detained persons disclosed that they have finalized the deal at Rs: 4 lakhs per kilogram and thus the estimated cost of seized tusk would be Rs: 1.70 crores. Later, all the recovered properties along with detained persons were handed over to Mr. Jaison John, Ranger Officer cum Assistant Wild Life Warden, Mayabunder Range on 30/09/12 for further action.
who did the valuation of the seized property? The seized property was not confirmed as Ivory before which valuation was carried out. Ivory has different value in the illegal market in the world and such valuation leads to promotion of illegal wildlife crime. It is hence requested that no such valuation may be publicised because through such publicity more people enter such trade.
It was a remarkable achievement by the CID and CCS branch but they had their basics wrong and they took the accused to PortBlair court.Whereas the accused are to be produced in the nearest competent court having jurisdiction from the place of seizure. Moreover WL(P)Act does not empower Police to book FIR or register a complaint in the court hence the accused and seized material should have handed over to nearest Range Officer having jurisdiction for producing the accused before court, this is specially because WL(P)Act,1972 prevails over any other act time being in force.