146 rare turtles found in lost baggage at Mumbai airport

The custom officials seized 146 tortoises from mishandled baggage of a Nepalese citizen at Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport (CSIA) on Sunday. The incident came to light after a Jet Airways staffer brought the baggage to officers of Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of customs, saying that some suspicious images (shell-like) had been noticed by the GVK security staff. According to the AIU officials, this is the first case this year where any animal or exotic species have been seized at the city airport.

According to AIU officials, the bag belonged to a transit passenger who arrived from Madagascar and flew to Kathmandu leaving the bag behind. Officials examined the bag and recovered and seized 146 tortoises. Out of these, 139 were radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata) and seven were Angonoka tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora), both critically endangered tortoise species in Madagascar.

A senior official from AIU said, “As per wildlife seizure codes, we get in touch with wildlife authorities. They direct us about the steps to be taken in such cases.

They said that these were exotic species and could not be introduced into India because of quarantine reasons. So we approached the airline. The airline has been instructed to re-export the same to Madagascar by intimating the wildlife authorities there.”

Additional commissioner of AIU, Rajiv Ranjan, while speaking to this newspaper said, “Two radiated tortoises were found dead with broken shells due to travel stress. All these turtles are rare and we are trying our best to save them.”

No arrests have been made in the case. The bag with the turtles is said to belong to a transit passenger called Lal Bahadur, a Nepal resident, who arrived from Madagascar and flew to Kathmandu leaving the bag behind. The baggage was mishandled on March 16 at the city airport, but was brought to the notice of customs only on March 20 by Jet Airways. According to AIU officials, Bahadur is in Nepal.

According to airport sources, the customs officials approached Air Mauritius officials to fly back the turtles to Madagascar, but they haven’t got any response from the airline as there is only one flight operating on the route.

According to the airline officials, they need to get directions from their authorities. When this newspaper tried to get in touch with Air Mauritius officials, they did not comment on the issue despite several calls.