The Golaghat police have arrested three persons for allegedly killing a leopard and trying to sell its skin and other body parts.
The arrested persons have been identified as 28-year-old Emin Dhanowar, 30-year-old Subhit Tetey and 23-year-old Jiten Kerketa.
“About three days back, we got information through some sources that there might be three or four persons, who were in possession of body parts of some wildlife and they might be involved in some poaching incident,” said Golaghat superintendent of police Pushpraj Singh.
“We gathered more information and lunched an operation on Monday night in the Kuwoni Paharline area under Bogijan police station.”
“During the search conducted in the house of Emin and Subhit, we found flesh and other remains of a leopard which were being dumped in a pond,” Singh said.
It is suspected that they also consumed meat of the leopard.
He also informed that during interrogations, the police came to know that one week back, both Emin and Subhit had set up a trap and accordingly killed a leopard.
“They had collected the skin and other valuable remains of the leopard and started searching for a probable customer but as they failed to find any buyer they contacted their relative Jiten Kerketa, who lives in Tezpur and sent the remains of the leopard to him,” Singh said.
The Golaghat district police chief further informed that in the wee hours on Tuesday, a joint operation was conducted by Golaghat and Tezpur police.
“During the operation we managed to capture Jiten Kerketa and also recovered the leopard skin and other body parts of the animal from his possession,” Singh added.