Alipurduar, March 27: The additional chief judicial magistrate (ACJM) of Alipurduar, Nirvan Khesan, today sentenced Rajendar Joshi to four years’ imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on him for illegal possession of animal parts.

Joshi is the third person to be punished in the past couple of years for trading in animal parts.

On August 9, 2006, following a tip-off, officials of the Cooch Behar forest division raided Joshi’s house at Deokota Tol in Jaigaon and seized some animal parts, including elephant tusks.

Joshi was arrested the next day and produced in the ACJM’s court, which sent him to jail. He later obtained bail from Calcutta High Court. After today’s judgment, Joshi was again taken to jail.

A few days before Joshi was nabbed, the Cooch Behar foresters had arrested Ratiram Sharma, the kingpin of a animal parts smuggling racket in Dooars, from the same place. Skins of four leopards and one rhino, and the skull of a tiger were recovered from him. Sharma was awarded a five-year jail term.

After that incident, Jaigaon police arrested Ashoke Sharma, and seized skins of a Royal Bengal Tiger and three leopards. Ashoke told the foresters that he used to collect the animal parts from Assam and sell them to people from Bhutan. While Ashoke is the son of Sharma, Joshi is his son-in-law.

Manindra Biswas, the divisional forest officer of Cooch Behar, said the arrest and punishment of the smugglers were the result of the vigil his department had kept. “It is a team work. The verdict will motivate us and the forest offenders will be all the more cautious. After we stepped up vigil in Jaigaon, animal smugglers have changed their area of operation.”

Biswas said the foresters had last week seized a consignment of animal parts from Shishubari bus stand, although the carrier managed to escape. “We had information that one person from Bhutan would come to collect the animal parts and we waited for him at the bus station.”

The Alipurduar court had sentenced another smuggler, Ganesh Oraon, to four years’ imprisonment in 2007.