The Pune police on Thursday arrested four men for smuggling ivory worth R3.50 crore to sell it in Pune. Aditya Sandeep Khandage, 19, Hrishikesh Harishchandra Gaikwad, 28, Aniket Chandrakant Astekar, 26, and Amit Ashok Pishka, 28, from Ahmednagar were arrested after a case was registered with the Dattawadi police station under the Wildlife Protection Act.
Senior inspector Devidas Ghevare of Dattawadi police station said, "All four of them were friends with Gaikwad being a Physics graduate and Astekar holding an MBA degree in Finance. We had received a tip-off from our informants regarding some men visiting Pune from Ahmednagar to sell ivory. We thus reached the Pu La Deshpande garden at Sinhagad road and detained them.
Two ivory pieces have been recovered from them. Forest officials identified them to be elephant ivory prima facie. They will now be sent to a Kolkata-based forensic laboratory for further verification," he added. The two ivory pieces measure 33 cm and 35 cm. Gaikwad was the one to find these and got Astekar to plan a business around it. "We are probing further to know where they got the ivory from," Ghevare said.
