Forest department officials have seized three reptiles of exotic species and a cat on display in a bar and night club on Road No. 36, Jubilee Hills, and taken into custody six persons accused of being involved in the suspected smuggling racket.
They acted on a social media tip-off from a user named Ashish Chowdhury, who said the night club put up exotic wildlife on display on their premises over the weekend, as understood from their Instagram page. He expressed concern that the reptiles might have been sedated to withstand the crowd, noise, and smoke in a confined space. The tweet went viral with a large number of people expressing outrage, and forcing the officials to act.
Special Chief Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development Arvind Kumar responded to Mr. Chowdhury’s tweet, calling the act audacious, shameful and shocking, and assuring action, on Monday.
Officials from the Forest department raided the night club on Tuesday, and confiscated a python, a Bengal cat, and two iguanas, all of exotic species.
“Six persons have been apprehended. They produced a few papers, and said they would produce a few more documents tomorrow. Once we receive the documents, we will decide further course of action,” Forest Range Officer Anuradha informed.
Exotic animals which are not of endangered species may be kept as pets or for display but with required licences and permissions. Owners of exotic pets should register themselves on the web portal ‘parivesh.nic.in’ as per the newly formulated guidelines.
An application for grant of a licence for import of exotic live species should pass through the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), and accompanied by a No Objection Certificate (NOC) of the chief wildlife warden of the state concerned.
If exotic fauna escape from the owners, the same should be notified to the chief wildlife warden immediately, as they need to be prevented from mating with the local species.