44YROLD HELD FOR TRAPPING TURTLE IN BANDRA

MUMBAI: One person was arrested by the state mangrove cell on Thursday for illegally trapping a Hawksbill sea turtle, protected under schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 from Bandra Bandstand in June this year.

Mangrove cell officials said they were tracking down the alleged accused over the past two months who had fled the city and on the basis of a tip off on Thursday, a team finally took him into custody. The accused — Raju Chattu Rana, 44 — will be presented before the Bandra court on Friday.

A team led by range forest officer (east) Mayur Bothe, foresters Prakash Thakur and Sainath Salwe, forest guards Harshal Sathe and Devidas Mutke, arrested Rana around 2.30pm on Thursday.

“After nabbing him from Bandra itself, we interrogated him and found that he wanted to sell the protected turtle species that he caught illegally. Rana was booked under offences under sections 9 (prohibition of hunting), 50 (power of entry, search, arrest and detention) and 52 (attempts and abatement) of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972,” said Bothe. “This is a non-bailable offence with seven years imprisonment.”

NGO Plants and Animals Welfare Society (Paws-mumbai) first filed the complaint with the forest department and Mumbai police alleging poaching of the protected species on June 26 when they spotted two people carrying the turtle in a net. “We thank alert citizens for reaching out to us and the forest department for acting against the accused. However, the Mumbai police did not act on time as they were not aware about WPA,” said Sunish Subramaniam, secretary, Paws-mumbai and wildlife warden, Mumbai city. “The turtle was fine and released at an undisclosed location.”

Bothe added that the other person spotted by the citizens was only helping the accused carry the turtle and was not responsible for the illegal act.