Monitor lizard skin sale
Place: Ponda.
Date: August 10, 2012.
Ponda Forest office.
Incident: The Ponda Forest range officials had arrested three persons in connection with the sale of monitor lizard skin and had recovered 20 Ghumats. The forest officials also recovered metal wire, a torch and battery used in hunting the monitor lizard.
The Ponda forest officials on August 10, 2012, arrested Shirkant Naik Shirodkar (41) from Curti-Ponda and Ganjanan Kotambikar (54) from Ponda. The Forest department raided Shirodkar’s residence and recovered 18 Ghumats which had monitor lizard skin on it. On the same day, a musical shop at Ponda was raided.
During the course of investigation, one of the accused revealed that another person, Rajaram Gaude (39) from Caranzole-Valpoi was also involved in the case. Accused Shirodkar had told the investigating officer that monitor lizard skins were purchased from Gaude.
Status of Investigation: Forest officials recovered 18 Ghumats from Shirodkar’s residence and two Ghumats from the shop at Ponda. Forest officials also recovered metal wire, a torch and battery presumably used in hunting monitor lizard from Gaude.
