Four persons have been sentenced to three years in prison and penalised for killing a leopard and trading its skin in Palamau Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Jharkhand. A case was registered against them in 2012. The incident is particularly significant considering conviction rates in wildlife crimes in the country are very low and cases drag on for years in courts.
The poachers were in possession of a nearly 6 feet 9 inch skin of an adult leopard, which they had hunted in the reserve.
They could only be nabbed after the execution of a well-planned strategy where the DFO and his team posed as decoy customers. The incident is the first of its kind in the reserve.
According to DFO Buffer Zone, PTR, AK Mishra: “Two persons were booked under Section 9 of the Wild life Protection Act- 1972, which prohibits hunting/ intent of hunting of wild animals. The other two persons have been charged under Section 52 of the Act. According to its provisions, whoever attempts to contravene, or abet the contravention of any of the provisions of this Act …. shall be deemed to have contravened that provision or rule or order..”
Apart from the three-year sentence, each has been slapped with a Rs10,000 penalty.
Going into the details of how the four poachers were nabbed, Mishra said it was possible due to a well thought out strategy of the forest department team. “We managed to track the poachers by posing as customers interested in buying the leopard skin. After feigning ignorance for nearly a month, they agreed to go ahead with the deal for Rs70,000,” he said. Prior to the purchase of the skin in February 2012, Mishra organised four teams each assigned with their respective tasks during the operation. The drama culminated in a highway hotel, about ten km from PTR, where two persons were caught. later, two more were apprehended from the nearby
villages.
Sources in National Tiger Conservation Authority said that such incidents not only boost the morale of forest departments in the country but they also act as deterrents against the occurrence of wildlife crimes in future. “Our Standard Operation Procedures act as guidance for registering the case with sound evidence which can convince the court and take the case to a solid conclusion,” they said. Instead of having a large number of witnesses for a case, it is always wise to have a few of them who stand by their statement and evidence till the end.
In this case the management had not only acted with alacrity to nab the poachers but was also well-prepared to handle the legal aspect of the case which led to the conviction of the case in two years.