Dead fireflies, owl claws among host of wildlife contraband seized from grocery store in Noida

The district forest department Wednesday night searched a grocery shop in the city and seized several wildlife contraband items such as dead fireflies, owl claws,

The district forest department Wednesday night searched a grocery shop in the city and seized several wildlife contraband items such as dead fireflies, owl claws, monitor lizard genitalia and the Himalayan herb, Costus roots, whose sale and exported has been prohibited by the government of India.

HT Image

Sunil Jain, the owner of the grocery store in Bhangel, Noida, has been arrested an FIR registered against him at the Phase-2 police station .

Officials said most of the seized contraband items are related to superstition, and used in occult practices and for preparing dubious concoctions.

The recovered items are as follows: 10 grams of dead fireflies, eight jackal bones (siyar singhi), two owl claws, 10 hattha jodi or genitals of monitor lizards, and three kilograms of Costus root.

“We received information from a wildlife NGO that a grocery shop in Bhangel was selling such prohibited wildlife items. Upon search, we found a number of contraband items, kept there for sale. These items are either used in occult practices or as medicines which have no proven medicinal value. Costus root is a Himalayan herb, whose sale or export is prohibited without a licence. A case was registered under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) against the shop owner,” said PK Srivastava, divisional forest officer, Gautam Budh Nagar.

“Items like fireflies and monitor lizard genitalia have no medicinal values but they are often used by quacks to fool the gullible. In several cases, the hattha Jodi itself is fake. Siyar Singhi or jackal bone is believed by many to be the bone that the jackal has in its skull, which is false. Owl’s claws are used in occult practices,” Saket Badola, country head, TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network that works in India as division of WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), said.

Speaking of Costus root, Badola said because of its overexploitation and habitat destruction in the Himalayan regions of Kashmir and Himachal, it is one of the few protected plant species in the country.

“Costus root has several medicinal properties and, hence, is one of six species of plants protected under Schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. This means that the person selling it should prove that its procured through legal or harvested methods,” Badola said.

Police said Jain was sent to jail on Thursday. “The accused was arrested for selling the prohibited wildlife species. A case was registered under sections of Wildlife Protection Act 1972. He has been sent to jail,” a police statement said.