It has been learnt that Rajkumar Durve and his brother Chabbulal, alias Keru, who were recently netted by the Chandrapur local crime branch, are closely linked to the Baheliya gangs of Madhya Pradesh, notorious for hunting wild animals.
The Durve brothers, trapped by a squad headed by subdivisional police officer Parag Manere and sub-inspector PA Badhak, are known hunters, with cases registered against them in the past too. According to a reliable source, Keru has already been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act for his alleged involvement in a tiger poaching case. Keru, extremely strong and agile as a hunter, according to the cops, has reportedly also been booked in a property offence case in Delhi in the past. The district police, after being informed by the CBI, had swung into action to nab the Durves, from whom a couple of mobile phones had been seized.
The Durves are learnt to be equipped with powerful, indigenously-assembled traps, which are reputed to be strong enough to incapacitate even an elephant if its leg gets caught in it in the jungle. "Their mobile communications have revealed that they were in touch with the Baheliyas and conversed frequently," said an official from the squad which arrested the brothers with the help of local residents of Ryotwari in Chandrapur recently.
"They (Durves) have been constantly denying it but the poachers who were nabbed by the CBI squad in Nagpur have revealed their names," said a senior official. He said that the Baheliyas may be the single largest community engaged in organised wildlife hunting, with a network spread across the country. The cops believe Keru and his elder brother too are involved in a major interstate poaching racket.
The CBI's economic offence wing's special wildlife squad had recently arrested five persons - Charandas Nihal Singh, Amit Kumar Sohan Lal, Ranjit Mangatram, Sadhu Baderiya and Ramswaroop Jagram - from Nagpur railway station. In an almost simultaneous raid, CBI Delhi had arrested Tenzing Tashir and Tenzing Ladoe from Tibetan Refugee camp on the outskirts of Delhi.
