Retd ACF, 3 others caught while selling 21 kg ivory

Police arrested four people, including retired assistant conservator of forests, trying to sell two elephant tusks weighing 21 kg on Residency Road on Sunday.

The arrested are K Karunakara Poojari, from Puttur, Anantharaya, M Subbaraya and MS Varma. One of them is a retired ACF while another is his relative. Police have seized two tusks from them.

A senior police officer said that the suspects were carrying two tusks in a car and waiting for a buyer. Police got a tip-off and raided the car and found four two tusks inside. Police seized them including the car. The suspects will be produced before a court and will be taken into police custody for further investigation, the officer added.

Possession of legal tusks

Poojari (68) told police that he had a licence for both tusks and obtained from the forest department in 1998-99 and produce a legal document of the possession. The tusks were at Nekkiladi village in Puttur taluk of Dakshina Kannada district. Later in 2002, they had built a new house in Kabaka village in the same taluk and shifted the tusks to there. In 2002, forest officials raided the house and seized the tusks but after detail hearing of the case, in 2017, a lower court in Shivamogga ruled in their favour and returned the tusks.

Selling is illegal

A senior police officer said tusks should be placed where the permission was granted in the licence and cannot be transported or sold to third parties. The suspects were caught red-handed trying to sell the tusks brought from Puttur to Bengaluru. Further investigation will reveal whom they were trying to sell these tusks.