Eight suspected tiger poachers held near Pench Tiger Reserve

Lemuel Lall, TNN | May 27, 2012, 01.37AM IST BHOPAL: Eight suspected poachers were detained with a metal trap, a knife and others implements allegedly used to electrocute big cats at Linga village of Chhindwara district late on Friday night, close to MP's Pench Tiger Reserve, which spreads over to Maharashtra. In Maharashtra's Chandrapur district, a striped-animal was electrocuted and chopped to 11 pieces for costly body parts a week ago. The detention of the group assumes significance as it comes some 22 days after a warning issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) that a big gang has paid advance to Katni district-based local poachers' gang to kill tiger for body parts for big bucks in international market. In the wake of the NTCA warning, a high alert has been sounded in 42 tiger reserves across the country, including five in the state. "We have recovered a metal trap, a knife, sharp iron rods, hammers, wires and wooden rods among other things used to kill tiger from their possession. After trapping the big cat, the modus operandi of poachers is that they put the sharp iron rod inside striped animal's mouth to kill him," Chhindwara divisional forest officer Ashok Kumar told TOI. After killing the tiger, the poachers beat it up with wooden rod to loosen its skin and thereafter remove the hide with specially-designed knife, which they have recovered, he said. Ashok said that the group was also owned one Gypsy jeep and eight motorbikes. "We believe that they had done a recee to kill tiger," he added. The arrested have been identified as Sanjesh of Shivpuri district and Zilendar Giri of Sarguja in Chhattisgarh while Rai Singh, Dharma, Dhara, Ishwar, Jorawar and Kismat, all hail from Chhitorgarh in Rajasthan. "We carried out searches at three places in Shivpuri," Ashok said. He said that right now it was difficult for them to say that if the gang were members belonged to nomadic Pardhi tribe. Pardhi tribe, especially hailing from Katni district was infamous for killing wild animals for an easy living. The big poaching gangs allegedly use this tribe that is believed to have mastered the illegal art of killing wild animals across the country. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Eight-suspected-tiger-poachers-held-near-Pench-Tiger-Reserve/articleshow/13537758.cms