NON RESIDENT INDIAN CAUGHT PEDDLING WILDLIFE TROPHY

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http://www.nriinternet.com/NRItravel/AIRLINEnews/2005/Jan/6_antlers_.htm  

NRI, Ex-DSP's wife caught with wildlife trophy on Delhi Airport

 

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005

SUROJIT MAHALANOBIS

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

 

If you are an NRI and possess old animal trophies decorating your plush homes in

India, make sure you have secured their certificates from the state wildlife

warden. Or you are in trouble, as was on Saturday the wife of a former Punjab

DSP.

 

The Canada-based NRI Harpreet Kaur (name changed) was taken for a surprise by

the customs at the Indira Gandhi International airport when her proud possession

of a sambar head with its exquisite antlers, which she was carrying to Canada,

was seized in a gruesome persecution, as she checked in the airport reportedly

to take a flight to Vancouver

 

The customs officials immediately filed a case against her under Section 53 of

the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and got the trophy examined by the northern

Indian office of Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species

(CITES). The CITES officials confirmed that the article was " a sambar head-mount

with antlers " and said it was about 25 years old and that the WPA was in place

at that time.

 

On Monday, a customs deputy commissioner fined Harpreet Kaur Rs 10,000 as

penalty but also issued the required certificate while letting her go

 

The Central government's recent notification asking citizens to secure

certificates from concerned state chief wildlife warden offices is still in

vogue in Punjab, though the same for the NCT of Delhi, where it was clamped in

October 2003, has expired. Customs officials confided, on condition of

anonymity, that Kaur had committed mistakes by not only by flouting the WPA

section, but also by not securing the Punjab chief wildlife warden's certificate

on possession of the trophy.

 

According to wildlife preservation assistant director KN Singh, who also looks

after the CITES issues, " Probably the lady was not even knowing that she had

committed blunders on both counts. People having old trophies need to be careful

about their possessions, or they might fall into troubled waters any day. In

this case the lady might not even be knowing the consequences of the mistakes. "

 

 

Sambar deers are not an endangered species. These are profusely spread all over

Asian countries, including India. It is also one of the larger members of the

deer family. Some males weigh upto 300 kgs and grow upto 150 cms at shoulders. A

large sambar can feed a full-grown tiger for over four days. Sambars are covered

by the scedule IV of the WPA 1972, as it's the essential fodder in the foodchain

of big cats, and environmentally a very important determinant for ecological

balance.

 

Vegetarian sambars are widely spread in all Indian forests and tiger reserves ^

such as Kanha, Corbett, Ranthambore, Bandhavgarh, Gir, Dudhwa, Manas, Kaziranga

and Sariska.