2 Maharashtra cops held with tiger skins in Chhattisgarh; pangolin scales seized

Raipur, Jul 1 (PTI) Two police personnel from Maharashtra were held with tiger skins in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district and subsequently a large quantity of pangolin scales were found in the house of one of them, forest officials said on Wednesday.

The duo were suspected to be part of an interstate wildlife trafficking racket, they said.

Baburao Madavi and Bijeshwar Gedam were held in Bande area of the West Bhanupratappur Forest Division along the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday when they were transporting two tiger skins on a motorcycle, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) S Naveenkumar told PTI over phone.

The operation was carried out jointly by the Anti-Poaching Unit of the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve

(USTR) in Chhattisgarh, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau’s Central and Western Regional units, the State Level Flying Squad and the West Bhanupratappur Forest Division, he said.

A case was registered against the accused under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, officials said.

Following Gedam’s questioning, forest officials conducted a search at his house at Aheri in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, and recovered a large quantity of pangolin scales, indicating that he was involved in the trafficking of multiple protected species, DFO Naveenkumar said.

Gedam and Madavi, both serving with Maharashtra Police, were allegedly acting as middlemen in an interstate poaching network, he said, adding that efforts were underway to nab the poachers.

Deputy Director of Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve Varun Jain said initial findings suggest the tigers were killed in the Indravati Tiger Reserve-Abujhmad area in Bastar, one of central India’s most important tiger habitats.

The operation was part of ‘Operation Safe Passage’, an initiative to protect the nearly 400-km wildlife corridor linking the forests of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra with the Indravati Tiger Reserve, Abujhmad, Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve and Odisha’s Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary, he said.

The corridor is crucial for the movement of tigers between Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh and also supports the long-term genetic connectivity of Asian elephants, Indian gaur, wild buffalo and several other wildlife species, Jain said.

He said the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve’s Anti-Poaching Unit had carried out similar interstate operations in 2023, leading to the arrest of several poachers and the seizure of two tiger skins, while in April this year it arrested a poacher accused of hunting nine Indian giant squirrels in Abujhmad. PTI TKP KRK