<![CDATA[The Uttarakhand forest authorities have arrested a 19-year-old boy for trying to sell turtles on the e-commerce website OLX.com. The accused, Mohit Garg, a resident of Dehradun's Vikasnagar has been booked under section 9 of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Also, a notice has been issued to OLX regarding the same. Three rare species of turtles have been recovered from Mohit's possession. The turtles were left in the forest by the officials. The forest authorities probe reveals that Mohit, changing his name to Bilal, posted the advertisement about having rare species of Indian turtles. Those interested, can purchase them for around Rs 3,000. The advertisement caught the attention of the wildlife officials, who later began with their investigation, leading to the arrest of Mohit. According to a Hindustan Times report, this is first such case in Uttarakhand. Dhananjai Mohan, chief conservator of forest (CCF) wildlife and intelligence was quotes saying, "I have directed concerned division officer to serve notice to the website. It’s the first incident in the state but to crack the whip on such activities, there should be a specialised agency,” The authorities on the pretext of buying the turtles, called Mohit to Sahaspur on June 12, from where he was arrested. During interrogation, Mohit revealed that he had caught the turtles from nearby areas and claimed that they belonged to Schedule III category. However, when the daily tried to contact the website they didn’t get an immediate response. “The significance of turtles is in Feng Shui because of which people want to buy them. But, the online purchase and selling is a new trend in animal part smuggling especially in Utarakhand,” wildlife expert Abhishekh Kumar was quoted. Department figures say over 250 turtles were seized since 2011. Besides turtles, experts said reptiles such as red sand boa, ball python and even pangolin scales are traded online. Indian parrots too record high demand.]]>
