Imphal, April 25: An Imphal court has sentenced a sea cucumber smuggler from the Andaman Islands to eight months imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 25,000.

The chief judicial magistrate of Imphal West, R.K. Memcha's court yesterday found Sikander Singh Gill, 44, of Bathu Basti, Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands guilty of smuggling sea cucumber, which is protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Gill was caught at Imphal airport with 991kg of dried sea cucumber on September 5 last year. He had come in a Calcutta-Imphal flight along with the sea cucumber consignment.

Forest officials said this was the first time that a case of sea cucumber smuggling was detected in Manipur. There is a high demand for sea cucumbers in Myanmar, China and Thailand for use as medicines. "There is a belief that the animal has high medicinal values and there is a high demand of sea cucumber in South East Asian countries," a forest official told this correspondent.

The smuggler told forest officials that he had bought the sea animal in dried form from a resident of Andaman Islands, Fiyaz Khan, and was planning to take the consignment to Myanmar through the Imphal-Moreh road (109km).

Forest officials here suspect the involvement of an international wildlife smuggling racket. They have informed the Wildlife Control Bureau on Khan, who is said to be absconding. The officials said banned wildlife items were regularly smuggled from Manipur to Myanmar through the Imphal-Moreh route.