Pramesh S Jain & Dr B Thomas (Special Correspondent)
The RMC Yard police with the help of city based wildlife activists busted an inter state racket and arrested a tribal man who are trying to sell star tortoises to his contact from Mumbai.
Senior officer told reporters,The accused from Chikkaballapura,was caught while he was waiting to deliver the consignment which he had stuffed in bagpack like vegetables.
The accused lived with his community in a colony in the outskirts of Chikkaballapura has sourced the star tortoises from eastern ghats of Karnataka and Andhra border .
He was collecting the tortoises for sometime based on the order given to him by his contact in Mumbai who offered him huge sum of money, sources, said .
The accused are planning to smuggle the star tortoise to Singapore,Malaysia and Thaliand which had a huge market for the wildlife and aqua lives .
The police are now trying to track down the receiver who soon after noticing the police managed to escape .
This is the second such incident reported as In August this year, the custom officials arrested a man from Uttara Kannada and rescued 60 star tortoises from his check in bag while he was boarding a flight to Bangkok he added.
