Allahabad Police have taken five men from a railway station here for smuggling over 600 endangered Indian Star tortoises.
The men were taking the tortoises from Allahabad to sell them in West Bengal.
The men, who seemed suspicious, were taken into custody by the Reserve Police Force during a regular check-up operation at the railway station.
"We saw that on platform number four, near bogey number three, five people were standing in a suspicious manner. They all had one bag each, which were looking very heavy. On the basis of suspicion we got them to open the bags and saw something. When we checked the bags, there were tortoises in it. So we brought all the five to the police station for further inquiry. During the inquiry, they told us that they are the residents of Sultanpur (a district in Uttar Pradesh) and 30 kilometres from there, there is a Telai village from where they buy the tortoises from rural people," said a police official, Anand Kumar.
Kumar further said that the men used to buy the tortoises at Rs.15, and then sell them for Rs.100 to 150 per tortoise.
The tortoises will now be sent to Kolkata. The arrested persons have been handed over to forest department authorities.