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Wildlife poacher held by STF in Lucknow, 108 turtles recovered
Lucknow's STF arrested Rinku Kashyap, a resident of Thakurganj area, for being a carrier for wildlife poachers linked to an international wildlife smuggling racket. The STF also recovered 108 turtles from his possession. The accused revealed that he used to buy each turtle at ₹200 and sell them at ₹300 each to smugglers in Bihar, Bengal, and Karnataka.
The UP Special Task Force (STF) claimed to have busted a wildlife-poaching racket with the arrest of a person in Lucknow on Thursday. The officials also recovered 108 turtles (Pangshura tecta) from his possession.
The arrested person was identified as Rinku Kashyap, a resident of Thakurganj area of Lucknow. He was working as a carrier for wildlife poachers linked to an international wildlife smuggling racket.
The accused was arrested in Lucknow’s Nakhas area near Akbari gate when he was carrying the turtles to hand them over to other people in Bihar and West Bengal and then across international borders, an STF press note read.
The accused was being quizzed to extract details where he said that he used to buy each turtle at ₹200 from Sitapur and near Gomti in Lucknow and would sell them at ₹300 each to smugglers in Bihar, Bengal and Karnataka.
“The man has been booked under various sections of the Wildlife Act,” the press note read.
The STF officials had earlier said as many as 20,000 turtles were being smuggled from UP every year, leading to a precipitous decline in their population. They said the indiscriminate hunting and smuggling of turtles has come to a head in recent times forcing the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to issue an alert.
“India is home to 29 species of turtles out of which 15 are found in U.P, and 11 of the 15 species found in U.P, are being smuggled,” the press note read.
They said there is a huge demand for Indian turtles in the international market for three reasons — meat, its feng shui connection and production of aphrodisiacs.
They said there were many gangs which prowl turtle habitats in the Ganga, Yamuna, Chambal, Ghagra, Sharda, Ken, Betwa and Rapti river basins.
“The turtle-smuggling network in the country extends from UP to Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. Kolkata has emerged as the main transit point for such smugglers, with turtles being illegally shipped to Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Thailand, Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian countries from its shores,” said the officials.
