AR-News: (India) Illegal lizard skin business flourishes in Orissa

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Jatindra Dash, Bhubaneswar, Feb 9 (IANS):

Sale of musical instruments made of skins of lizards, though prohibited by 
law, flourishes at a religious fair held in an Orissa town, say activists.

The instruments are sold at the grand annual religious fair at Joranda, a 
pilgrimage centre in Dhenkanal district, 130 km from here, for followers of the 
Mahima Dharma religious movement founded in 1828. 

There are over half a dozen temples in Joranda dedicated to the movement's 
founder, Mahima Gosain. Every year, people congregate for a fair between January 
and February. 

This year, the five-day festival began last week. Followers of the religious 
group play a musical instrument known as 'khanjani' that is made of a small 
hollow round ring of wood across which skin of a monitor lizard is stretched.

Wildlife activists say at least 5,000 such instruments were sold at this 
year's fair. "At least 6,000 monitor lizards must have been killed for these 
instruments," said an expert who visited the fair.

But wildlife officials deny this. "Every year we patrol the fair and arrest 
the people selling them," district wildlife officer Sashi Pal told IANS.

"This year too our officials are keeping a close watch. We don't have any 
information if anybody is selling the instruments secretly," he said.

But activists claimed most visitors at the fair had the musical instruments 
and wildlife officials were afraid of seizing them or making arrests.

The skins used in the instruments come from two species of endangered monitor 
lizards -- the Indian monitor or varanus bengalensis and yellow monitor 
lizard or varanus flavescens -- that are protected under the Wildlife Protection 
Act of 1972.







full story:
http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&showcomm
ents=1&id=5866 

"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.",
Albert Einstein
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There is no justice, just us!  










    
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