Two men arrested with tiger hide in Uttarakhand’s Champawat district
The accused claimed that they had found the tiger’s carcass in the forest area of Diwuri some time ago. Instead of informing forest officials they skinned the carcass to earn money and were going to sell it on Saturday when they were caught
Two men were arrested in Chalthi area of Uttarakhand’s Champawat district with a tiger skin on Saturday, police said on Sunday.
The duo was carrying the tiger’s skin in a car and was heading towards Tanakpur to sell it when they were intercepted by a joint team of the forest department and the police.
“On a tip off we laid a trap with forest officials on Saturday to nab the wildlife smugglers. We intercepted a car and recovered a tiger skin when we searched the car after," Hemant Kathait, in-charge, Chalthi outpost in Champawat said.
The two men were identified as Basant Bhatt, a resident of Amori and Mahendra Singh of Diwuri village (both under Champawat police station).
A forest official estimated that the tiger was about 7 years old. It measured around 1.7 metres in length.
The accused claimed that they had found the tiger’s carcass in the forest area of Diwuri some time ago. Instead of informing forest officials they skinned the carcass to earn money and were going to sell it on Saturday when they were caught, the police said.
The recovery of leopard hides is common in Kumaon but a tiger’s hide was recovered after a gap of three years in the area. Forest officials had nabbed two wildlife smugglers in December 2017 for possessing a tiger skin and 8.33 kg its bones. Both were from Lakhimpur Kheri area of Uttar Pradesh. They were entering from Nepal when they were nabbed.
