A 55-year-old man from Bengal was arrested on Sunday night from a hotel in the Forbesganj area of the district, around 350km northeast of Patna, for possessing an elephant tusk worth around Rs 10 lakh in the grey market.

A police team raided the room where Abdul Majid had put up and found the tusk weighing 3.7kg. Majid, a resident of South 24 Parganas district of Bengal, is reportedly a senior employee of a land developing company in Calcutta.

“We have registered a case of smuggling against Majid under Forbesganj police station. He was produced before the court of the chief judicial magistrate, who remanded him in 14 days of judicial custody,” superintendent of police (Araria) Shivdeep Lande told The Telegraph today.

“We seized a mobile, a laptop and a diary from his possession. We have checked some of the call details. Most of the calls were made to Nepal and the northeastern states,” he added.