Two arrested for poisoning tiger at Kaziranga park

GUWAHATI: Kaziranga National Park authorities and police have arrested two persons for poisoning a tiger to death at a chapori (sand island) on the Brahmaputra about two weeks ago.

Park divisional forest officer SK Seal Sarma on Monday said the duo was arrested both of them confessed to their crime. They have been indentified as Nazir Ahmed and Bahajul Haque of Jinjia area in Sonitpur district.

Sarma said actually five persons were involved in poisoning the tiger to death in retaliation to the killing of their cattle at Koltapu Chapori, which falls under Jingia police station. The other three are still at large.

"The duo took us to the spot where they had buried the carcass. We found the decomposed remains of the animal from the spot and arrested them on Sunday in the presence of a magistrate," added Sarma. He said the remains have been sent for forensic tests. The area where the tiger has been killed falls under the northern range of the park. Park officials said the five have already sold off the tiger's bones.

"We don't want to disclose the name of the person to whom the bones were sold for the sake of investigation. We are also after the three others involved in the crime," northern range officer (in-charge) J R Das said.

Many sand islands dotting the Brahmaputra on the northern boundary of the park are used as livestock farms and tigers from Kaziranga often stray out to prey on cattle. In the past, the farm owners had indulged in poisoning tigers.

Kaziranga's 430 sq km has 118-odd tigers. According to National Tiger Conservation Authority's ( NTCA) 2011 report, Kaziranga's tiger density is 15.92 per 100 square km, while in Bandhavgarh it is 16.25 per 100 square km.