Assam: 6 kg Nepal-bound ivory seized

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Guwahati zonal unit has seized ivory weighing about 6 kg from two persons, including a contractual railway employee, near Guwahati Railway Station.

DRI officials said that this confirmed an elephant tusk smuggling trail from within a certain radius of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park to Nepal via the Chicken’s Neck corridor in West Bengal.

Wildlife crime investigators had a whiff of this trail when DRI detectives seized 12.41 kg of ivory from a bus in northern West Bengal’s Siliguri town on February 15.

“Acting on a tip-off, our officials caught two persons near Guwahati Railway Station about 1 p.m. on Saturday and seized 24 pieces of ivory weight 5.838 kg from them,” a DRI officer who declined to be identified said.

Railway employee involved

The two men were identified as Badrul Hussain of Hojai from central Assam and Suraj Kumar Das from West Bengal. Mr. Das is a contractual railway employee working as a coach attendant of the daily Howrah-Guwahati Saraighat Express train.

They were caught as Mr. Das was in the process of receiving the ivory package from Mr. Hussain.

Interrogation revealed that Mr. Hussain had received the package from an animal body parts trader in Hojai. Mr. Das was expected to deliver it to a dealer in New Jalpaiguri (railway station for Siliguri) for smuggling out to Nepal.

“Wildlife officials have confirmed the ivory was extracted from five adult and sub-adult elephants killed, in all likelihood, in Karbi Anglong district of central Assam,” the DRI officer said.

The hills of Karbi Anglong, adjoining Kaziranga National Park, is where animals take refuge when the rhino habitat with a large population of elephants is submerged during floods.

Officials said the 12 kg ivory seized in Siliguri earlier this year were sourced from north-eastern Assam’s Lakhimpur district, close to the border of Kaziranga’s Northern Range.


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Assam: Two smugglers held with 24 ivory pieces in Guwahati

The directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) on Sunday sleuths seized 24 pieces of ivory here while a contractual railway employee was collecting them here on Saturday.

The consignment, weighing around 5.838kg, was seized near Guwahati railway station around 1pm when Suraj Kumar Das, a coach attendant of Saraighat Express, was collecting it from Badrul Hussain in central Assam’s Hojai district.

“Interrogation of the duo revealed that Hussain picked up the packets containing the ivory from a person at Hojai for delivery to Das, who would deliver it to another person at New Jalpaiguri, for smuggling to Nepal through the border in north Bengal,” The Telegraph quoted a DRI official as saying. Das and Hussain were arrested.

Wildlife officials confirmed the tusks were extracted after killing at least five adult and sub-adult elephants, and since the ivory was sourced from Hojai, it is likely the elephants were killed in Karbi Anglong.

It is a known fact that endangered species are regularly being slaughtered for their parts, especially because of the rising demand in the international market, a DRI statement said.


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