IMPHAL: Smuggling of python gall bladder from Manipur to South East Asian countries is on the rise, said NGO People for Animal (PFA).
The gland is smuggled to China and other South East Asian countries via Myanmar where it is used in traditional medicine, it added. “Traditional healers believe that python gall cures fever and cough. They also manufacture medicine for other ailments by mixing the gall with different elements,” PFA managing trustee L Biswajeet Meitei said on Thursday.
“A fisherman in Manipur can get Rs 9,000 to Rs 15,000 for a python bladder. It is reported that brokers collect the gland from remote villages bordering Myanmar and sell them at higher price,” he said.
Meanwhile, PFA volunteers saved a 10-feet-long Indian Rock Python from being killed and having its gall bladder smuggled to China, Biswajeet said and added that the incident occurred in Chandel district’s Kwatha village a few days ago.
The reptile species falls under Schedule I (the most-endangered species) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Members of Kwatha Environmental Management and Development Organization (Kemado) rescued the python from some fishermen who had caught it from a forest nearby. Fishing by electrocution in the hill streams of Manipur is widely practised by locals. The python was caught with the same method.
