Woman Carrying Exotic Snakes, Lizards On Train Arrested In Jharkhand

A woman passenger onboard a Delhi-bound train was detained at Tatanagar railway station after the Railway Protection Force seized exotic breeds of poisonous snakes, lizards and insects from her possession, an RPF official said on Monday.

Acting on a tip-off, RPF personnel conducted a search in the general compartment of the Delhi-bound Neelanchal Express on Sunday night and seized the snakes, lizards and insects stuffed in plastic bags.

The official said 29 snakes of foreign breed were seized worth crores of rupees in the international market. The cost of the seized lizards was found to be in the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000.

He said the 52-year-old woman from Pune had procured the reptiles, lizards and insects from Nagaland. She then travelled to Dimapur, from where she reached Hijli near Kharagpur to catch the train to Delhi, the RPF official said.

The snakes and other animals recovered were handed over to forest officials.

Divisional forest officer Mamata Priyadarshi said among others 19 ball pythons, four red pythons, two sand boas, one albino python, one reticulated python, one Burmese python, nine European rhinoceros beetles, 12 green iguanas and spiders of many species in a box. Some of these species like the albino python are very expensive in the international market.

She said the poison of these species have many uses including medicinal uses.

"We want to preserve them, they are invaluable for us," she said adding the seized snakes, lizards and beetles will be sent to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun.

The detained woman is being interrogated to discover the identity of others involved in the animal trafficking racket. She was later handed over to the forest department for legal action.

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