KOLKATA: Forest officials have busted a racket in Kolkata that used to sell and transport banned, but expensive, Shahtoosh shawls — manufactured from the skin of Tibetan antelope, a schedule I protected animal. Each shawl ranges between Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, and one shawl apparently requires poaching of at least three-five of the animals. Forest officials seized 27 such shawls, worth more than a crore, and arrested three from Kashmir who were selling those along with Pashmina and Angora shawls.
An endangered species listed in Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and Appendix-I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the Tibetian antelope (Pantholope hodgsonii) is also called Chiru and importation of any part or products of Pantholopes is prohibited by the US Law.
