Three wildlife smugglers were today arrested and 30 kg of precious Pangolin snake scalps was seized from their possession at Kansarau range of the famous Rajaji National park here, police said.
A patrol team of the park held three wildlife smugglers with a large quantity of Pangolin snake scalps after it saw dubious SIM cards and mobile phones lying within the sprawling precincts of the park and launched a search operation, Deputy Director of the park Harshvardhan Kumar Singh said.
Packed in three sacks, the snake scalps weighed 30 kgs, he said, adding the trio is being interrogated.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the trio, all locals, had struck a deal with a goldsmith under Doiwala police station station area in Dehradun district.
Pangolin scalps in such large quantity had never been recovered in the country earlier, the park official claimed.
Pangolin which falls into schedule 1 category of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, is a rare snake species and there is an international ban on trading of its scalps which have a number of therapeutic uses, he said.
However, its scalps are being illicitly used by countries like China, Thailand and Taiwan to cure arthritis, gouts and a number of abdominal diseases, he said.
