Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
The Railway police busted a wildlife smuggling racket and recovered a box Ethiopian lizard, a African corn snake and adult Nigerian python from Guwahati Bengaluru Express on Tuesday.
The police team during a routine inspection ahead of new year,discovered three unauthorized cardboard boxes in the A1 coach.Upon opening one of the boxes, they found a steel cage containing an Ethiopian lizard.
The officials alerted Wildlife Rescue team and when they arrived and inspected the other two boxes,they found a juvenile African corn snake and an adult Nigerian python.
All three wildlife species were handed over to the Yelahanka Range Forest Officer (RFO) team,which later transferred them to the Bannerghatta Biological Park.
A case has been taken up under Wildlife Act and investigations are on to ascertain source of the animals and the people involved in the racket.
It may be recalled that the airport officials recently busted two smuggling racket,On Wednesday,the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) of Customs at Bengaluru International Airport unearthed a wildlife smuggling trade and caught two people,including a businessman,allegedly trying to smuggle four agile gibbons concealed in four suitcases to Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Due to the increase in vigil at the airport and sea ports in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the accused are using trains and road ways to smuggle the products.
The officials suspect that the rescued reptiles suspected to be meant for the pet shops who are selling it to their customers for their craze of having these exotic species are pets.
