4 people arrested for being in possession of Sand Boa

India: Crime branch unit 1, on Saturday, arrested four people trying to sell a Sand Boa, a rare snake species, which comes under the Schedule 3 animals under the Wild Life Protection Act 1972.
Recently the city and rural police arrested people in possession of the snake. It appears to have two heads and there are many superstitions associated it.
The four arrested people have been identified as— Snehal Prabhakar Kharat (52), Anand Mhaske (47), both residents of Aurangabad, Abidkhan Patan (50), a resident of Chalisgaon and Kshitiz Tulshiram Patil, a resident of Jalgaon.

Personnel from crime branch unit 1 had received a tip-off that a person named Snehal Kharat, a resident of Aurangabad was travelling in a car with the Sand Boa. The person was going to a particular guest house in Dwarka area of the city.

Acting on the information, police called the forest department to inform officials about the tip-off. Subsequently, they conducted a joint raid at the guest house.

After matching the car with the description they had received, police raided the hotel and found four suspects in a room. They recovered the snake, seized the car along with the cellphone the suspects were carrying.

Last month on August 12, police had arrested 28-year-old Abhijeet Jadhav for allegedly trying to smuggle a Sand Boa in Malegaon. On August 14, another person named Dnyaneshwar, alias Dinesh Chavan, was arrested from the city.

(Source: The Times of India)