On Wednesday, 23rd October, the joint team of Bihar police and forest department arrested Trinamool Congress leader Ashok Kumar Ojha from West Bengal and 4 others for smuggling elephant tusks in Buxar district of Bihar. The officers raided a house in Devkuli village, located under the Brahmpur police station area in Bihar, and recovered two elephant tusks weighing around 23 kg, worth lakhs of rupees. The operation was executed as the police followed a tip-off of the illegal sale of tusks in the illegal market.
As per the reports, the house that was raided by the police in Devkuli, from where the recovery of tusks was made, belonged to Burrabazar TMC leader Ojha. He has been the vice president of the North Kolkata Trinamool Hindi Cell and has been closely associated with the Jorasanko TMC MLA Vivek Gupta. After the arrest, the leader was notably expelled from the party.
The five arrested persons including Ojha are being questioned. After the reports of his arrest, TMC reportedly expelled him from the party.
However, as per MLA Vivek Gupta, this is not a case of smuggling. He claimed that Ashok Ojha used to keep elephants at his Bihar house, and one of his elephants died recently. The tusks belonged to the dead elephant, Gupta claimed. He added that the party has nothing to do with the incident and Ojha has been expelled from the party.
BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari took cognizance of the event and commented on X criticizing TMC for allegedly being a ‘general store of crimes’. He indicated that the party leaders had been involved in all types of scams and were now not even sparing the wildlife.
“TMC is the general store of Crimes:- Coal Smuggling, Cow Smuggling, Illegal Sand & Stone Mining, MGNREGA Job Card Scam, Mid Day Meal Scam, Ration – Food grains Smuggling, Teacher Recruitment Scam, Medical Equipment/Medicines Smuggling, Admission Scam.. The list grows… Now Wildlife is also not being spared. I wonder what’s next !!!” he said.
Prominent TMC Leader; Ashok Kumar Ojha of Burrabazar; Kolkata arrested from Bihar's Buxar in Ivory smuggling case.
— Suvendu Adhikari (@SuvenduWB) October 23, 2024
Ojha; the key figure of the smuggling racket was arrested along with four others for smuggling Elephant Tusks weighing 23 kg.
TMC is the general store of Crimes:-… pic.twitter.com/Dw8RWV54O7
Notably, the other four accused persons arrested by the joint team along with Ojha have been identified as Ganpat Sah from Begusarai, Manoj Kumar Pandey from Pipra Jagdishpur, Paras Nath Ram from Karakat, and Dhananjay Prasad Singh from Tirasi Bigha, Rohtas.
According to the police investigation, the smuggling network intended to sell the tusks after an elephant died in Devkuli during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Police said that after the elephant died during the pandemic, an attempt was devised to sell its tusks illegally. According to forest department officials, transporting elephant tusks is a serious violation of the Wildlife Protection Act. Legal action will be taken against the accused to the full extent of the law. Further investigation is underway to discover more of those involved in the smuggling network.
