Jamshedpur: A woman from Pune was caught travelling in the general compartment of Neelachal Express with wild animals worth crores of rupees. She was caught by RPF at Tatanagar railway station.
This is being billed as a major success for Tatanagar RPF. However, the main operative is still out of police net. The woman was probably used for transporting the material and she has claimed that she was paid only Rs. 8,000 for transporting the animals.
The woman who was arrested by the RPF from the general bogie of the Nilanchal Express along with the wild animals is originally from Pune and her name is Devi C.
The bag recovered from the woman was found to be full of wildlife animals, including snakes, chameleons, spiders and beetles, among others. All creatures are of foreign origin.
The RPF team took the woman into custody and took her to the police station where the woman was interrogated.
The RPF in-charge SK Tiwari contacted a snake catcher after which Mithlesh Kumar Srivastava alias Chhotu Snake Catcher, Tarun Kalindi alias Cheeku and Rohit Rao reached the RPF police station and pulled out all the creatures from the bag.
In all 26 snakes, bettles kept in 9 bottles, 12 bottles of Chameleons and 1 box full of spiders were found.
However, one of the snakes and 8 chameleons were found dead.
The snake catcher Chhotu said that apart from snakes and spiders, beetles are also poisonous.
For now, the RPF has contacted the Forest Department and has informed them.
Giving information about this, the RPF officer in-charge SK Tiwari said that he got information from Kharagpur that a suspicious woman was traveling in the general compartment of Nilanchal Express. After this, the woman was caught as soon as the train arrived at Tatanagar station. During the search, wild animals were recovered from him.
The woman said during interrogation that a person in Nagaland had given this bag to her to take it to Delhi. For this, she was given 8 thousand rupees. She reached Guwahati by train from Nagaland and then from there to Howrah.
From Howrah she reached Hijli and from there she was going to Delhi by boarding the Nilanchal Express.
Meanwhile, she was in contact with the person who had asked her to transport the animals.
The RPF team has started raids to arrest the person.
The RPF officer in-charge stated that none of the seized animals were of desi origin. All are of exotic species. Their value in the foreign market may be worth crores.
The value of only one snake sand boa may be to the tune of Rs 25 cr in the international market.
