K'taka police bust antique racket; recover 7.5 kgs ivory articles

Bengaluru, Nov 18 With the arrest of six people, the Karnataka police on Friday claimed to have busted an antique smuggling racket here and seized 7.5 kilograms of 21 articles made in ancient ivory.

Those arrested have been identified as Himmat Singh from Haryana, Praveen Sambiyal from Punjab, Abdul Kayoom and Mohammad Rafeeq from Mysuru, Mohammad Israr aka Babu and Amjad Pasha from Bengaluru.

According to police, the accused were arrested in Bengaluru while waiting in a car for customers. "The articles were carved out of ancient ivory of elephants, prices of which cannot be evaluated in terms of money," they said.

The antique articles include knife with ivory handle, door handles of different designs, statues of elephants, walking sticks, 20 erotic art works based on Kama sutra and another amber art piece where scorpion is embossed alive.

The case is being detected by Bengaluru City Central Crime Branch (CCB) Women Protection Wing. The Bengaluru Police Commissioner Pratap Reddy has appreciated the efforts of the police in detaining the gang.

Further investigation is on.