Forest Department officials searched the house of Ghouse Mohiddin Shakhadri, hereditary administrator of Sri Guru Dattatreya Bababudan Swami Dargah in Chikkamagaluru district, and seized the skins of wild animals, on Friday.
Deer and leopard skins were seized from Shakhadri’s place on Market Road in Chikkamagaluru city. When the officers reached his place with the search warrant in the morning, nobody was at home. They contacted Shakhadri over the phone. He had been to Andhra Pradesh. Later, his wife, who was in Bengaluru, returned to Chikkamagaluru and opened the house so that the officers could search and conduct the seizure procedures.
When The Hindu contacted Shakhadri, he said the skins seized by the officials had been with his family for more than a century.
“I got them from my ancestors. I have conveyed the same to the officials. We have cooperated with the official procedure,” he said.
