Indore (Madhya Pradesh)
State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) Indore will go to Malegaon again in an attempt to arrest the prime suspect, Hashim, involved in international vulture smuggling after the forest minister Vijay Shah gave officials a deadline to arrest the accused.
On January 20, Fareed Sheikh, a resident of Unnao, was caught along with seven vultures. After this, Hussain, Ateeq and Arif Ahmed were arrested from Sikka port in Jamnagar, Gujarat. A large cage was also seized in the vehicle.
Source said that main accused Hashim has a shop in Malegaon, from where he trades in animals and birds. He has a lot of political clout in the area due to which the STSF officers and Khandwa forest department officials could not even question the other smugglers properly. Though they took remand of the smugglers the officers couldn't find where the birds had been smuggled from Sikka port.
Sources said that forest minister Vijay Shah is now supervising the matter and he took details from forest ranger Dharamveer Solanki about the case as SDO Pratibha Ahirwar was not present. Shah denied that the department was under any pressure or was protecting smugglers. Rather, he said that the team was going to Malegaon and Uttar Pradesh to gather more details.
