In a multi-State operation, the Maharashtra Forest Department (MFD) officials have arrested eleven people, including five women, and detained five minors allegedly involved in the tiger poaching and smuggling of its skin.

Acting on a tip-off from the Assam Wildlife Department and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCF), New Delhi, a Special Task Force (STF) set by the state forest department zeroed in on a hide-out on Ambe-Shivni area on the outskirts of the Gadchiroli town in eastern Maharashtra, where it took into custody a gang of 16 -- comprising 6 men, 5 women and 5 minors, early on Sunday.

Of them, the STF placed eleven persons under arrest, while they detained five minors from the gang. 

The STF has seized three tiger claws, seven steel jaw-traps, other weapons used to kill tigers, Rs 46,000 in cash, mobiles and other materials from the gang that had been living in the Ambe-Shivni area for more than a year now.

All the arrested persons have been booked under the various provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and other laws.

The arrests by the STF came after it received a tip-off from the Assam Wildlife officials who had arrested three persons from Haryana on June 28 for illegal possession of a tiger skin originating from Maharashtra. During their interrogation, the three arrested persons had told Haryana forest officials that a nationwide tiger poaching racket was being perpetrated by the ‘Bawaria’ community of hunters through their gangs.

Having received the alerts from the WCCB, the state forest officials set up an STF, headed by a senior officer Jitendra Ramgaonkar. The team, which eventually brought about the arrests within days of its start of investigations, comprised officials from various tiger sanctuaries in the state.