Inputs and pic courtesy The Hindu

• It was being transported to Bangalore in a car 
• The two tusks weighed 38 kg.
• Two other accused managed to escape

Prize catch: The accused who were arrested by the forest mobile squad when they were transporting ivory in a car.

Hassan, Jan 12: A forest mobile squad along with officials of the Sakleshpur Forest Department and Sakleshpur police arrested three persons in the early hours of Friday and seized two elephant tusks together weighing 38 kg.

Acting on a tip-off, the sleuths intercepted a car near Yebbusale village on Mudigere- Sakleshpur road at 3 a.m. and seized the ivory.

The names of the arrested have been given as Ansari, Nassir and Arun.

Two other accused, Subbaraya Gowda and Raghu, escaped even as the police stopped the vehicle.

All the accused are from Mudigere in Chikmagalur taluk, and the ivory was reportedly being transported to Bangalore.

Estimate

Superintendent of police Umesh Pangam said that a kilogramme of ivory was unofficially estimated to fetch Rs 2.5 lac.

The value of the seized ivory is estimated to be Rs 95 lac.

A case has been registered at the Sakleshpur town police station. Venkata Shetty, officer from forest cell, is investigating the case.

According to the police, Subbaraya Gowda and Raghu are the main accused.

Deputy conservator of forests, Hassan, K.H. Nagaraj told The Hindu, that the ivory might not have been procured from Hassan district.

Forest department sources said the elephant, whose tusks had been removed, might be 50 years old.

Police sources pointed out that the accused claimed that they did not know anything except that they were accompanying Subbaraya Gowda and Raghu.

Remanded

The accused were produced before a court in Hassan which remanded them in judicial custody.