Snake skin smugglers caught in Haripur

International smugglers working with locals in illegal smuggling, says wildlife dept spokesperson

HARIPUR:

The Abbottabad Wildlife Department on Saturday arrested a gang involved in the illegal smuggling of snake skins in the Shah Maqsood are of Haripur.

Sources confirmed that the group of alleged smugglers belonged to Rawalpindi and were caught as they were transferring the skins to Muzaffarabad.

According to a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest and Wildlife Department spokesperson, the skins are used in the manufacturing of valuable medicines in Japan and Thailand.

“It is a punishable offence to hunt a snake for its skin or to obtain the skin of a snake from the forest, which the snake itself sheds before the rainy season,” said the spokesperson.

The wildlife department also arrested a shoemaker from Peshawar a year ago who was later booked and fined, the spokesperson added.

Earlier this week, the K-P Wildlife had foiled two separate bids of smuggling of wild species and arrested the smugglers in Abbottabad district on Wednesday.

The Intelligence Wing of Abbottabad Wildlife Division managed to apprehend offenders involved in illegal trafficking/smuggling and dealing of peregrine falcon from Shangla district to Islamabad. The arrested man has been booked under various sections of the Wildlife and Biodiversity Act 2015 and penalised with a heavy fine of Rs110,000.