Monday, 27 January 2014

Tiger killing case slapped against whistle blower along with other suspects

TIGER DIES OF SUDDEN SHOCK

U Sudhakar Reddy

Tiger killing in Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve near
Mannanur in Nallamalais took a new turn on Friday. Mahabubnagar police booked a case
under criminal trespass, mischief by killing animal, hunting in a sanctuary against
Eenadu news contributor P Vedantam, a teacher, an electricity department employee and a
driver and others alleging that they entered into forest without permission of the
department and the whole case is revolving around them. Interestingly the case was booked
against the news contributor who bought the tiger killing to light. The case was based on
the complaint filed by Mannanur Forest Range Officer Mr B Lakshman. Forest department
also booked a preliminary offence report(POR) under several sections of wild life
protection act.The tiger that was found dead under suspicious circumstances in the Nallamala forest region on Thursday. — DC
The post mortem examination report found that the tiger died of ‘injury and sudden
shock’. Foresters said this could happen due to poisoning and fall after it.
“Investigations so far point that the tiger has killed a cattle of a villager two
kilometers from Mannanur and angered by this the cattle rearer poisoned the Caracas of
cattle which was later eaten by the tiger. The big cat comes back to kill and eats it for
few days. It may have died after eating the poisoned carcass. Following the death same
cattle rearer or others who spotted it chopped of its leg and took away claws. The role
of the reporter so far appears to be trespassing and not informing the cops or foresters.
But we are investigating the allegations of forest department too,” said an investigator.
According to Amrabad Sub inspector of police Mr. G Ravinder the case with crime number 
5/2015 has been booked under section 447 and 429 of IPC and section 51 of Wild Life 
Protection act against P Vedantam, a private teacher R Lakshman, electricity department 
employee Mr. B Niranjan, former driver of forest department Mr. Hathi Ram and others.
Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve Filed director Mr. Rahul Pandey said . “This is 
not a professional poacher’s work as they didn’t take valuable skin, teeth and jaws.  It 
is an act of locals. The contributor who went into the forest first has been refusing to 
give details how he came to know about the incident. He didn’t bother to inform either 
police or forest department,”. One of the guard on duty at Mannanur told forest sleuths 
that he saw the news contributor and teacher entered into the forest on a bike around 
5.30 pm on Wednesday. “The photograph was taken daylight it shows that the contributor 
had entered into forest prior to that during day time also. We didn’t know about the 
incident till we saw the picture in the newspaper,” says field director Rahul Pandey. “We 
have found any noose or bullet injuries on the tiger.
Mr. P Vedantam denied any wrong and said an unidentified cattle rearer handed him over a 
memory card with the pictures and he had sent to his office. “I didn’t enter the forest. 
I run a medical shop at Mannanur and work part time for the newspaper. The cattle rearer 
handed over it and vanished. He may have taken the photo on mobile phone,”
The POR booked by forest department is under section 9(prohibition of hunting), section 
27(restriction of entry into sanctuary), 29 (destruction in the sanctuary without a 
permit), section 31(prohibition of entry into sanctuary without weapon) and section 
39(prohibiting making trophies from wild animals) under Wild Life Protection Act.
The viscera of the tiger and cattle was sent to APFSL for examination to find out whether 
the tiger and cattle was poisoned. The samples were also sent to Veterinary Biological 
Research Institute for examining any diseases, for DNA sampling to Lacones of CCMB. “It 
will take 15 to 30 days for getting the reports from the agencies,” said Pandey.

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