HETAUDA: Makawanpur Police recently arrested three persons on the charge of possessing pangolin scales from Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City-10 of the district and made them public at the District Police Office (DPO) on Tuesday.

Police have identified the arrestees as Gaurav Gautam (30), Krishna Bahadur Gole (31), and Surya Lama (48), all residents of Hetauda-1 in the district.

Acting on a special tip-off, a team of police deployed from Makawanpur DPO, under the command of Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police Nabin Bikram Thapa, arrested the trio while they were selling the scales inside the bus park.

Police seized two kilograms and 90 grams of scales from their possession.

Meanwhile, the police are preparing to send the trio to Division Forest Office, Hetauda for further investigation and action, informed Superintendent of Police Sushil Singh Rathore, chief at Makawanpur DPO.

Pangolins are listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The Government of Nepal has also listed two pangolin species in Schedule I of the National Park and Wildlife Conservation (NPWC) Act, 1973.

Anyone involved in the trade of protected species may be slapped with a fine up to Rs 100,000 and a jail term of five to 15 years, in accordance with the NPWC Act.