Three persons have been arrested for allegedly poaching a tusker and removing its tusks in Odisha’s Ganjam district last week, an official said on Friday.
A man, his son, and his nephew were arrested on Thursday. Two tusks, buried near the canal, have been seized, divisional forest officer Sudharashan Behera said. A search is on to nab the other suspects. The tusk-less and bullet-riddled body of an elephant was found on July 7 under Ghumusar North division’s Muza range.
“We sealed the entire jungle area for at least five to six days and launched a combing operation to detect the tusks. As many as 25 forest officials were divided into groups for search operations,” the official said. Forest officials suspect some other outsiders, likely to be professional poachers, were involved in the poaching for ivory, adding that an investigation was on.
