MUMBAI: Cricketer-turned-politician and Indian Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has been named in a police complaint for keeping stuffed bird, a black partridge, gifted to him by a Pakistani journalist.
According to NDTV, Sandeep Jain, an animal activist in India, has filed a complaint demanding a probe into how the black partridge was brought from Pakistan and kept in India by Navjot Singh Sidhu for so long.
Sidhu was gifted the bird by Pakistani journalist during his visit to Pakistan to attend the launch of Kartarpur corridor.
The minister handed over the gifted bird to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh after his return from Pakistan.
"Under the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act's Schedule 4, it's illegal to keep an animal or a bird or their body parts without any permission. The punishment could be a jail term up to three years or Rs. 25,000 fine or both," Sandeep Jain claims, Indian media reported.
Sidhu has been engulfed in controversies since his visit to Pakistan for the oath-taking ceremony of his friend Prime Minister Imran Khan in August.