Friday, July 1 2005 20:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: CBI, probing the disappearance of tigers from Sariska sanctuary in Rajasthan, today (July 1, 2005) secured from a Delhi court, the custody of Sansar Chand, India's most wanted poacher and smuggler, to help the agency in unravelling the missing links in the poaching case.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manoj Jain granted ten days custody of Chand, arrested yesterday (July 30, 2005), to the CBI accepting its plea that it wanted to take him to wildlife sanctuaries in various States to "unearth his organised syndicate and establish the chain of events from inception stage of wildlife products to its final circulation".

"Considering the facts placed before me and in order to unravel the entire conspiracy and enable the investigating agency to take the accused to various other States for purpose of necessary custodial interrogation, the CBI is granted ten days police custody of the accused", the court said.

CBI told the court that it planned to take the accused, nabbed from a house in Patel Nagar in West Delhi in a dramatic manner after a three-month long operation by the Delhi police, to Sariska, Alwar, Bandipur and some sanctuaries in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The court also took on records an application filed by the Rajasthan police for his custody in connection with a case in Jaipur in which his wife, son and two others are already in custody and posted it for hearing on July 11.

Chand was wanted by the CBI in connection with a case filed by the Kamla Market police and later transferred to it, in which 41 leopard skin was seized and other wildlife articles recovered. Non-bailable warrants are pending against Chand in five other cases in the capital.