Maharashtra to announce CBI probe in tiger poaching cases

NAGPUR: Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is all set to announce a CBI inquiry into tiger poaching cases unearthed in Vidarbha between October 2012 and May 2013.

Gang of organized tiger poachers arrested in June first week by the forest and police officials in Mansar near Nagpur have confessed that their separate teams killed at least 11 tigers in the eight months. However, forest officials have recorded killing of only five tigers.

All the tiger skins were sold to Sarju Bagdi, a tiger skin and body parts trader from Haryana/Delhi in April and June by the poachers. First deal for six skins was struck in April in Bhandarbodi near Ramtek while another five skins were sold in June near Amdi.

The number may be even more if the 16 poachers whose names were revealed by arrested poachers Chika and Mamru are nabbed. The 11 tigers were killed in forests of Vidarbha and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The poachers have gone underground after arrest of their gang members.

Highly placed sources told TOI that after Chavan gave his nod, principal secretary (forests) Praveen Pardeshi is learnt to have written to CBI director Ranjit Sinha on July 26, requesting him for CBI probe into the poaching of tigers. Repeated attempts to contact Pardeshi proved futile.

Quoting leading wildlife experts like Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) and Valmik Thapar of Ranthambor Foundation among others, TOI on June 19, was first to demand CBI probe.

Although senior forest officials were opposed to a CBI probe, on July 11 forest minister Patangrao Kadam however showed the willingness. He asked chief wildlife warden SWH Naqvi to send a proposal. But, Naqvi sent a proposal to constitute a special investigating team (SIT), which requires a home ministry nod.

Even as the SIT proposal is pending, a CBI probe is expected to be announced on Tuesday. "Looking into the gravity of poaching incidents, which had alarmingly raised its ugly head in all the tiger-bearing states in the country, it had not remained a job of any single state to investigate the cases," said highly placed sources in the department.

"We were buying time to collect sufficient evidences against poachers whose links are widespread. Now that we have enough material to nail poachers, a CBI probe is need of the hour," they added.

Even the CBI chief Ranjit Sinha, calling India as 'the land of the tiger', while inaugurating a five-day conference in Delhi in July first week, had said that saving tigers is like 'saving the ecosystem. The CBI chief had said that the probe agency had gained valuable expertise in this domain while probing the Sariska tiger killings cases few years back.