ndian police have hailed the arrest of a notorious suspected poacher who they say killed sloth bears and ate their penises as a "very important catch".
The man, known as Yarlen, had been on the run for years.
Authorities were first alerted when they found sloth bear carcasses without genitals in a national park.
The nomadic Pardhi-Behelia tribe he is part of believe the animal's penis is an aphrodisiac, said Ritesh Sirothia of the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department.
But Yarlen, who was arrested on 19 October in the state of Gujarat, was also a major figure in the tiger poaching trade in central India, he said.
He was a suspect in several cases involving the poaching and trading of endangered wild animals, including tigers, in central and western India.
He is alleged to have used several different identities to evade capture.
Yarlen is yet to be charged and neither he nor a lawyer have commented on the allegations. He was produced in court on Wednesday and remanded in custody.
"We created a special cell to track him down and arrest him. It was our longest chase, it went on for six years," said Mr Sirothia, who heads the forest department's special task force.
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