In a major raid by the police and forest department on a haunted house at Belagavi in north Karnataka amazingly yielded a huge stock of antlers, scales of pangolin, and a pair of elephant tusks worth crores of rupees. Police have arrested Salim Soudagar alias Chamadewala (45), a resident of Kotwal Galli in Belagavi.
According to police the wildlife products were stored for the past 20 years in the house and smuggled regularly to various countries by the accused, Salim Chamdewale. The house was being used mainly to store the horns and tusks and nobody stayed there.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Amarnath Reddy said based on a tip-off, they raided the house and also arrested Salim Soudagar alias Chamadewala (45), a resident of Kotwal Galli.
The accused, who is a traditional leather trader, claimed that the antlers, pangolin scales, and tusks had been stored over several years. At times, these products are sold to buyers in Hyderabad and Mumbai, he told the police. But the police said there were no documents to support his claims.
Police have registered a case under the Wildlife Protection Act. According to officials of the forest department the antlers and pangolin scales have substantial demand in China and Vietnam. The pangolin scales were in demand for their medicinal properties as well as to manufacture bullet-proof jackets.
Forest officials said the seized articles were old and accumulated over the years. They did not rule out the possibility of poaching in the Western Ghats on the western side of Belagavi district, where these animals were in substantial numbers. Some of them could have been collected from the forests as antelopes regularly shed antlers once a year, they said.
Apart from horns of wild animals weighing more than one ton, they also seized tiger claws and a large number of elephant tusks, worth several crores during the raid.
According to police to carry out his illegal trade, Salim had prevented people from entering the house by telling them it was a 'ghost house'. Nearby residents claim for many years they never saw lights in the house during night. Once or twice a week, Chamdewale would enter the house during night, load horns and tusks in goods autos to smuggle them out, according to the police.
During interrogation, it was revealed that Samir has been in the business of smuggling for nearly 20 years and has been selling these horns and tusks to clients in the international market. Salim largely sold it to clients in the Gulf countries and China.