Delhi, November 12: Three foreigners were convicted today in a case involving a landmark seizure of a huge number of leopard and otter skins in the Indian capital. They will be sentenced later.
The trio, two Tibetans, Anand alias Tashi and Lobsang Phuntsok, and a Nepalese citizen Jeet Bahadur were arrested on April 6, 2005 with 45 leopard and 15 otter skins. They are the first Tibetans in Exile to be convicted of a wildlife crime.
The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi, Alok Agarwal, pronounced the conviction in one of the shortest trials under the Wildlife Protection Act that was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following orders of the Supreme Court in a petition filed by Ashok Kumar, vice-chairman Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). The prosecution was led by Rajan Dahiya advocate for CBI and assisted by Saurabh Sharma of the WTI.
The Delhi police, reacting on the information provided by WTI started watching the old Tibetan Camp at Majnu Ka Tilla in old Delhi and were able to apprehend the trio red-handed. Despite trying four times in the higher courts the accused did not get bail for the period of the trial, being ably opposed by the CBI counsel, Harish Gulati.
Coincidentally, this happened on the very day His Holiness the Dalai Lama launched the anti-wildlife trade campaign of the Care for the Wild International and WTI with the statement that ‘the law of the land has to prevail’.
During the investigation the accused had disclosed that they were working for a person called Tchhwang Tashi Tsering, a notorious wildlife trader from Nepal. He paid Lobsang Puntsok and Jeet Bahadur Rs 1000 each to store the skins and transport them to Nepal. Tashi was Tchwwang’s point man and was assigned to conceal the contraband that he received from Sansar Chand, a well-known trader of Delhi, now in jail.
Mr Kumar, after the historic judgement said, “This seizure is one of the largest in recent past and the conviction would go a long way in dissuading foreigners from trafficking in illegal wildlife articles.”
Ten witnesses were examined in the trial which ended after about two and half years of its initiation. “The sentence to the accused will be handed out very shortly,” says Saurabh Sharma, WTI lawyer who assisted the Prosecution during the bail hearings and trial.
