Snake venom worth `12 cr recovered, one arrested from S Dinajpur

The Forest Department has decided to handover the case of snake venom recovery case to the CID. This comes on the wake of two jars of snake venom being recovered from South Dinajpur district on Monday night. One person has been arrested in connection with this.

"In the recent past, there have been multiple cases of snake venom recovery from North Bengal. In all the cases, we find some or the other connection with South

Dinajpur. We feel that a major racket is operational in this district hence we would like to hand over the investigations to the CID. They are better equipped for the investigating job," stated Diparna Dutta, Divisional Forest Officer, Balurghat.

Based on a tip off, the 41 Battalion of the BSF jointly with the Forest Department conducted raids in the Fulbari-Pransagar area under the Gangarampur police station in South Dinajpur.

"We recovered two jars of snake venom, one in powder state and the other in liquid state from one Sudeb Tigga. The cost of the venom in international market is approximately Rs 12 crore. Each jar contains two pounds of venom," stated T G Simte, DIG, BSF.

One 37-year-old Sudeb Tigga, a resident of Balapur Dhainagar area under the Tapan police station was held in the Buniadpur police station. He will be produced before a court on Wednesday. The arrested has been interrogated by the BSF and the Forest Department.

The BSF and Forest Department are of the opinion that the jars have been smuggled in from Bangladesh.

They were to be taken to China via Nepal. Tigga claimed that he is just a delivery man and was asked by a person to deliver it at a destination for which he would be getting Rs 2 lakh.

The bullet-proof glass jar bore labels "Red Dragon" (the name of the company) and "Made in France." The jars will be sent to a laboratory in Mumbai for testing the contents. In the recent past, similar venom jars have been recovered from the Indo-Bangladesh border Hili and from the Daulatpur areas.