14 kg of tusks, elephant jaw seized in Raipur

Police have arrested two people belonging to an inter-state poaching gang and seized elephant tusks.

Police in Chhattisgarh have arrested two people belonging to an inter-state poaching gang and seized 14 kg of elephant tusks and a jaw worth millions of rupees.

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Police in Raigarh, 220 km from Raipur, acted as decoys on Sunday and struck a deal with two men for five tusks and a jaw for Rs 5 million. The pair was taken into custody when they brought a bag loaded with the loot, said district police chief Dipanshu Kabra.

"Brajram Chauhan and Jagdish are members of a gang involved in selling body parts and skins of protected wildlife animals," Kabra said.

These animal parts were sent to the international market via Mumbai and Jaipur, he said.

Raigarh district along with neighbouring thickly forested districts of Jashpur and Surguja have long been as a 'man-elephant' conflict zone. Forest officials admit that elephants have killed dozens of villagers in the past two years in the three districts.