No more breakthrough in Borda poaching case

TNN | Jun 22, 2012, 03.41AM IST CHANDRAPUR: Forest officials are searching the properties of the relatives of five accused arrested in the Borda tiger poaching case. Still investigators have not got any more breakthrough. Five persons were arrested in the case from Ghanta Chouki village recently. Three turned out to be waterhole watchers and two casual labourers of FDCM. But interrogators failed to recover any concrete information about tiger poaching from them. After they were remanded to judicial custody by court, forest officials have started searching at the residences and farms of their relatives for missing body parts. Search was carried out in Asegaon, Janala and Gilbili villages but no evidence was recovered about tiger poaching, sources said. Investigators however recovered two antlers from Rupdas Veladi's residence in Gilbili on Wednesday evening. As he was not available at home during the search, a notice has been issued to him to appear before local forest officer, they said. Investigators are confident of the involvement of the arrested accused in tiger poaching. However they are facing difficulty in establishing their connection with poaching. "We have learnt that tendu leave collectors have seen the accused poachers dragging the dead tiger in jungle adjacent to place where tiger's cropped carcass was found. But due to fear none of eye witnesses has come forward to give the details. Our men are desperately searching the jungle around the spot to trace the location where tiger was poached and cut into pieces," said an officer involved in the investigation. Forest officers are trying to approach every tendu leaves collector who was in that area on the fateful day. Though they have failed to find the location where tiger was poached, but they suspect that poaching was carried out with the help of wire traps in nearby jungle where carcass was recovered, sources claimed. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/No-more-breakthrough-in-Borda-poaching-case/articleshow/14328908.cms