'49 to 54 tigers in Uttarakhand killed in a year'

Close proximity to Nepal has turned Uttarakhand into a hub for tiger poaching, with 49 to 54 tigers — one fourth of the total tigers in the state — killed in less than a year (2010-11), an internal government memo had revealed.

Updated on: Mar 28, 2012, 02:03:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Close proximity to Nepal has turned Uttarakhand into a hub for tiger poaching, with 49 to 54 tigers — one fourth of the total tigers in the state — killed in less than a year (2010-11), an internal government memo had revealed.

The memo was based on confession of three tiger poachers — Tota, Balram and Balku Bawaria — caught in separate raids in the state. They were caught with tiger and leopard skins allegedly killed in the state.

According to NGO Wildlife Protection Society of India, 61 tigers were killed in 2011 and 18 till end of February 2012 in the country. This does not take into account the alleged killing of tigers by these three poachers.

The poachers reportedly hired locals to kill tigers in different forest ranges of the state, including Corbett Tigers Reserve, which has highest density of big cats in the world.

"For each tiger an initial amount of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 was paid," said a senior state forest department functionary. Once the animal was killed and handed over another Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 was paid.

Although the poachers operated separately, their modus operandi was similar. They visited the state to order the killing in three to four locations

and thereafter, the entire operation was run using mobile phones. "For the first time, mobile phones were put on

surveillance and it helped us to crack the racket," a senior state forest department functionary said.

Then arrangements were made to transport the body parts to Uttarakhand-Nepal border. "All the tiger body parts were smuggled to a woman named Aarti in Nepal, who ensured it reached possible clients in Tibet," he said.

The internal memo sent to then CM Ramesh Pokhriyal, who was also in-charge of forest department, also highlights the fact that saving tigers in Uttarakhand was a difficult job considering highly open forests and easy access of poachers to areas with big cats.

The memo by vice-chairperson of forest advisory committee Anil Baluni during the BJP government, surfaced after the change in the state government and highlights apathy of forest management in the state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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