Forest officers stated Arif, who claimed to be a skilled snake rescuer, illegally possessed two monocled cobras, a scheduled species protected underneath Wildlife Protection Act, throughout a raid by Bhadrak wildlife division. (Photo | Express Illustration)
BHUBANESWAR: In a serious crackdown on unlawful possession of scheduled wildlife species and their illegal show on social media, the Wildlife Wing of the Forest division on Monday arrested a person from Bhadrak, with tens of millions of followers on totally different digital platforms, for allegedly possessing two snakes and sharing the rescue movies of the reptile on web in violation of Wildlife Protection Act – 1972.
The accused Mirza Md Arif is from Kajimahala space of Purnunabazar in Bhadark and has over 2.82 million followers on YouTube and 1.44 lakh on Facebook.
Forest officers stated Arif, who claimed to be a skilled snake rescuer, illegally possessed two monocled cobras, a scheduled species protected underneath Wildlife Protection Act, throughout a raid by Bhadrak wildlife division. Besides, his common posts on social media platforms reminiscent of YouTube and Facebook additionally violated the Wildlife Protection Act, they stated.
The state authorities had issued an order on March 15 making it clear that folks posting selfies, images and different such supplies with scheduled wildlife species, their physique components or trophies quantities to violation of the Wildlife Protection Act and is a punishable offence with imprisonment as much as seven years.
Forest officers stated Arif used to publish rescue movies of snake and different wildlife species on social media platforms frequently. His movies attracted lakhs and crores of views on YouTube.
Principal chief conservator of forests (Wildlife) and chief wildlife warden Susanta Nanda stated the accused had given an endeavor to the Forest division lately to abide by the rules issued for the snake handlers by the Wildlife Wing.
Arif instructed DFO, Bhadrak (Wildlife) Division, he’ll delete all of the posts that he had uploaded on social media. Despite the endeavor, he failed to take action, the chief wildlife warden stated including the Forest division has requested the social media platforms involved to droop the account of the accused.
“One such platform has already suspended his account, while we are pursuing the others,” Nanda stated whereas making it clear within the occasion of any reluctance, the involved service supplier of the platform can even be summoned. Further investigation into the matter is on.
