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Mumbai: In a primary for them, the Thane forest division has busted a gang of crocodile smugglers from Hyderabad and seized two reside endangered child crocodiles, an official stated right here on Tuesday.
Following a tip-off, the unprecedented operation was carried out on Monday on the freeway at Borivali East in north-west Mumbai, when a staff of forest division officers intercepted a vacationer bus travelling from Hyderabad to Navi Mumbai in Thane.
“On checking the luggage compartment of the bus, we came across the two baby crocodiles kept in cages. We have seized them and sent them for caretaking, and arrested three persons in connection with the racket. Further investigations are underway,” Thane Range Forest Officer Narendra Muthe instructed IANS.
He stated that these juvenile reptiles – identified by their scientific title as ‘Crocodylus Palustris’ – are estimated to be price between Rs 100,000-200,000 every in the gray markets.
“However, it is still not clear what is the real reason for smuggling these creatures over such a long distance by road from Hyderabad to Navi Mumbai, and what will be their ultimate fate,” Muthe added.
The ‘Crocodylus Palustris’ figures on the Red List of Threatened Species of the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2014.
The forest division has arrested three individuals – the bus driver M. Abdul Rahim Hafiz and Shivaji Baglaya, each from Hyderabad, and their affiliate Khuddos Latif Baig from Bidar in Karnataka.
They had been produced earlier than a Magistrate Court in Borivali and have been remanded to police custody for 3 days, stated Muthe.
Found solely in freshwater our bodies or marshes of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iran, these crocodiles are additionally identified domestically as ‘muggers’.
They have already grow to be extinct in Bhutan and Myanmar, and the species is prone to have been worn out even in Bangladesh, in keeping with the IUCN.
The present estimated inhabitants of the ‘muggers’ is between 5,700-Eight,700 in the wild and are poached to be used as meals – particularly its eggs and meat as delicacies, sure organs for medical functions, and its pores and skin is used for vogue apparels and equipment, say wildlife officers.
