Man held with 40 endangered lizards

A team from the Wildlife SOS was called in to verify if the seized animals are an endangered species under the amphibian and reptiles category of the Wildlife Protection Act,making hunting or smuggling of the lizards an offence.

The police arrested Prabhu while he was sitting in a park in Raghubir Nagar (West Delhi) with his wife and children at 6 pm on Monday. “He had seven gunny bags with him. We apprehended and interrogated him. A team from Wildlife SOS also arrived and confirmed that the reptiles were monitor lizards. The lizards have been taken by the team to their Defence Colony office,” a source said.

An FIR has been registered at the Khayala police station against Prabhu,who has been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act. He was produced before the court on Wednesday,which sent him to 14 days’ judicial custody.

Prabhu reportedly belongs to Dausa in Rajasthan and has been involved in illegal hunting and smuggling of these lizards for many years now. “He is a member of Bawariya tribe,” an officer said. This is first time he has been arrested.

“He used to hunt these lizards in the jungles of Rajasthan along with his accomplices in Dausa,and sell them to clients in Delhi. We are looking for others involved in this racket,” the officer said.

Officials added that the species is slowly vanishing from the country as a result of widespread smuggling.

Monitor lizards are usually sold at very high rates for their skin,nails,meat and oils. The accused was planning to sell these to the buyer for Rs 2,000 each. He might not have been aware of the actual worth of this species in the international market,an officer said.

“The accused was selling the monitor lizards for their meat. When we found the animals,they were in a state of shock. They need time to recover before they can be released in the wild,” Abhishek Narayanan from Wildlife SOS said. “The lizards are very large in size,obviously caught in order to be sold for meat.”

There have been previous seizures of monitor lizards in the Capital,which has emerged as a hub for illegal transit of the reptiles .