An alleged racket in poaching and arms smuggling has been busted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence following raids on the house of national shooter Prashant Bishnoi in Meerut on Saturday night.
The officials seized 140 weapons, 50,000 cartridges, leopard and black buck skins, stuffed deer, antlers, bones, ivory tusks and about 117 kg of nilgai meat besides about ₹1 crore in cash.
Four detained
Prashant is the son of Devendra Kumar, a former Army colonel. The police have detained four people for questioning. The 17-hour-long raid at the Civil Lines house was conducted jointly by DRI, the State Wildlife and Forest Department officials and the police.
Initially, Prashant’s family members told the officials that the cartridges were given by the government for practice but were unable to produce the licence.
Sanjeev Kumar, a Forest Department official, who was part of the raiding team, said the father-son duo might have been running a wildlife poaching racket.
“Foreign rifles and pistols were recovered. Their licences were not found. The team interrogated the retired colonel and asked him about his son Prashant, who is absconding. He has not told the police much about the whereabouts of his son,” Mr. Kumar told the media. While the raids were on, the retired colonel told the media that he had no idea about the alleged acts of his son. No arrests have been made yet.
The racket came to light after three persons including a Slovenian national, suspected to be a supplier of illegal arms, were intercepted on Saturday at the Indira Gandhi International Airport with 25 prohibited lethal weapons, a DRI official said.
They had incorrectly declared the quantity and value of the arms to the Customs officials and tried to get these cleared by misusing the scheme meant for renowned shooters, he said.
Rules permit professional shooters to import a limited quantity of arms and ammunition for practice.
(With PTI inputs)
