Five held in Bengal with leopard skin worth Rs 10 lakh

Kolkata, Jan 21 (IANS) Five people were arrested in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district for trafficking a leopard skin worth Rs. 10 lakh from Gorumara enroute to Nepal, Belacoba Forest Range Officer Sanjay Dutta said on Monday.Based on prior information a special team started tracking the traffickers, an official statement said.The team followed Bikash Rai (30), Ranjit Mohanta (24), Sanjay Adhikary (22), Monahan Munda (28) and Kishanganj Tamang (37) and arrested them on Sunday near Gajoldoba and Odlabari.A leopard's skin measuring 10 ft was recovered from them. They had negotiated for Rs 10 lakh for it with other traffickers. The animal is suspected to have been killed just four to five days earlier. "They have confessed that they were involved in hunting the leopard in the forest area of Dooars," the statement added.
--IANS bnd/oeb/bg