Chandigarh: Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of Chandigarh Police and People For Animals (PFA) raided a Punjab Roadways bus (PB- 65-1917) here and seized two Sand Boa snakes and 600 ml venom of Cobra worth Rs 10 crore.
The snakes and venom were smuggled to Chandigarh from Delhi for a rave party, PFA wildlife officer Saurav Gupta said.
He said that Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister and founder and chairperson of People For Animals, had an information about the smuggling following which the Chandigarh Police and a team of PFA conducted raid here.
Gupta said that snakes and venom were packed in a box of shoe and kept inside a bag.
“Honourable Minister Maneka Gandhi had informed the police and PFA office at Chandigarh about the smuggling. With the help of police, we conducted a raid here and recovered two snakes and venom,” Gupta said.
He added that the smugglers somehow managed to escape leaving behind this bag.
“During the course of interrogation, commuters and others traveling in the bus revealed that smugglers had left the bus in Karnal,” he said.
Meanwhile, PFA chairman Maneka Gandhi was shocked to know that smugglers were not nabbed saying, “How this is possible? How this information was leaked? I had personally given this information to the PFA activists and Chandigarh Police. I have asked the Superintendent of Police, Chandigarh, to look into the matter.”
Chetan Sharma, a PFA activist informed that a case has been registered under the violation of Wildlife Protection Act.
A massive hunt operation has been launched by the police to nab the smugglers, he said.
