Bihar: Authorities to move court for remand of doctor, three others in ivory smuggling case

PATNA

: The

forest department authorities

would soon move court to pray for remand of four accused including a doctor for their interrogation to know about the racket of elephant ivory (tusk) smuggling in which they were allegedly involved.

Patna

divisional forest officer

(DFO) Ruchi Singh on Wednesday said that they need to interrogate the four to know from whom they had managed to smuggle the ivory and with whose help they were smuggling it further.

A team led by DFO Singh had arrested Dr Jyoti Kumar, his driver Guddu Rai and two mediators Ravi Ranjan and Bunti Patel from premises of one Chirayu hospital near Zero mile in state capital on Monday evening.

The doctor, who used to work at the private hospital, is also in-charge district president of BJP in Vaishali.

The forest department authorities had recovered 35 kilograms of elephant ivory kept inside a private ward of the hospital on Jyoti’s confession. Sources said elephant ivory price fluctuates from 90USD to 600USD per kilogram or even more across the globe.

The ivory was brought to Patna from Hajipur by the doctor in his car which was also seized by the authorities. All four were forwarded to judicial custody on Tuesday. It was the intelligence input of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau on the basis of which the forest department authorities had laid a trap and arrested the four with ivory.

The DFO said that a preliminary offence report, which is similar to a FIR, had been filed at the Patna east range office of the forest department in connection with the recovery and arrests.

“Once the range office submits its detailed report in the case, we will move court to seek their remand for interrogation. We also have two seized cellphones which would be opened up after court’s permission,” she said.

Singh said that the ivory would be sent to Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for forensic laboratory to know if it was of Asiatic elephant, its age and how old it was.

“The doctor repeatedly told us that ivory was of the elephant which he onwed and died four years back. However, he failed to produce a government issued license for owning elephants or a post mortem report. Even if he had an elephant, the tusks were required to be submitted to the government as per Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972,” the DFO said.

She said once they get the four accused on remand, it could be also known that from how long they were involved in such an illegal activity and if they had smuggled other animal parts too.