Former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking anticipatory bail in a poaching case that Jhajhar police had filed against him.
Pataudi and seven others face arrest on charges under the Wildlife Act for hunting an endangered black buck near Jhajjar town in Haryana.
Another accused, Shashi Singh, has also moved the high court, after a Jhajhar lower court rejected his bail plea.
The Jhajhar court had asked Singh to approach the designated environment court in Faridabad.
Meanwhile, wildlife department officials recovered four animal skins from Pataudi's Ibrahim Palace in Gurgaon.
The skins include that of a tiger, nilgiri thar, spotted deer and sambhar, all of which fall under the protected category and whose hunting was forbidden in 1972 under the Wildlife Protection Act.
These skins are now being sent to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for forensic examination to establish if the animals were hunted before 1972 or after.
"We have not seized these skins, but we can confirm that wildlife officials have taken them after a joint raid they conducted along with the Haryana police last week at Ibrahim Palace in Gurgoan. The wildlife authorities are handling this case and we have nothing to do with it as it is not relevant in the present case," Hanif Qureshi, senior superintendent of police told rediff.com on phone from his residence in Jhajhar in Haryana.
"We cannot tell you how many raids have been conducted. We are continuing our efforts to nab the accused," he said.
Asked if the investigating officer had received any official intimation to extend the time till June 15 to allow the accused persons to appear before him, Qureshi said that no such request had been received so far.
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