Tusks pop out of parcel at Prinsep St post office

KOLKATA: When Customs officials paid a sudden visit to the Prinsep Street post office on Friday afternoon, the postal staff were in for a big surprise.
Assisted by the postmaster, the officials started sifting through piles of parcels. None was sure what they were looking for. When two big boxes marked ���garment��� weighed suspiciously more, the officials decided to rip them open.Out came an assortment of children���s clothes and nestling between them were two huge pieces of ivory tusks. The parcels were marked for Mumbai.
The thickness of the ivory suggests that the one-and-a-half-foot-long tusks are those of a full-grown elephant and are worth Rs 5 lakh each.
Debesh Das, superintendent of the preventive and intelligence branch of the state Customs department, said they had received a tip-off and believed the person involved runs a smuggling racket.
Customs officials said the man who had booked the parcels is a resident of Diamond Harbour and runs a racket in smuggling animal products like ivories, tiger and crocodile skin and is also involved in poaching in the Sunderbans. They believe the person receives ivory from Bangkok on ships that dock at Haldia and then sends these to Mumbai and West Asia. Many tusks are also suspected to be brought in from North Bengal.