Chamrajnagar: A dealer in animal body parts and two others were arrested by the forest officials for allegedly extracting three teeth from the carcass of a tiger 'Prince' in Bandipur National Park on April 2.
The arrested were produced before the court in Gundlupet on Thursday and remanded to judicial custody. The arrested have been identified as Bomma (41), a tribal, and Soma (35), both residents of Cheluvarayanapura. The dealer has been identified as Pinniswamy, from Hundipura.
While grazing cattle on April 2 Soma and Bomma came across a tiger carcass and both planned to extract the teeth for money. Later in the evening they ventured into the forest and extracted canine teeth of the tiger by chopping the jaw with a sharp weapon.
Later they dumped the jaw some 200 metres away from the carcass and it was traced by forest officials. They were sure that Pinniswamy would purchase the canine teeth as he had link with smugglers in Kerala. They sold one tooth for Rs 2,000. However, before Boma and Soma could strike another deal, they were arrested by the forest team, led by ACF Poovaiah.
The Director of the Park, Heera Lal, told Deccan Chronicle on Thursday that they have recovered all three tiger teeth. Pinniswamy has a case in Gundlupet police station for his alleged involvement in selling a tiger skin.
During the necropsy veterinarian Nagaraj found that except three teeth everything else was intact. When the tiger carcass was found on April 2, it was in a decomposed state as it had died five days prior to that date.
