The Kerala Government wants the CBI to investigate the recent incidents of elephant-poaching in the jungles of the State. As per the information received by the Kerala Forest Department, poachers had killed a minimum of 50 tuskers in the jungles of different forest ranges in the State in the recent past.
The State Government wants the CBI to take over the case as the forest department and the Kerala police have limitations in carrying out the investigations because of its inter-state connections. Forest Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan had the other day submitted a recommendation to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in this regard.
According to the Forest Department, five airports had been used to smuggle the ivory extracted from the elephants the poachers had killed in the State’s forests. The department has also learned that people from at least five States were involved in the incidents. As many as 33 persons have already been arrested in connection with the poaching and related ivory-smuggling incidents.
Investigations of the forest department so far have reportedly revealed that the ivory extracted from killed tuskers during the poachers’ raids had probably been smuggled to Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana. The Government was forced to request the Centre for a CBI probe as the forest department and the State police could not carry out full-fledged investigations in these States.
Also, the department has noticed several mysteries in connection with the poaching incidents. The prime accused in the case, Aikkaramattam Vasu of Kothamangalam, was found dead in a pineapple farm near Dodamarg in southern Maharashtra on the night of July 18 just when the State forest department had intensified its search for him.
The body of Vasu, who was said to have shot several jumbos dead in the Central Kerala jungles, was found hanging from a tree in the farm but the forest department has not yet been able to confirm whether he had committed suicide or he was murdered. Nor has it got any specific information in this regard from the Maharashtra Police.
Immediately after the death of Vasu, the State Government had planned to request the Central Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to look into the poaching incidents, which had come to light following the confessions of a former forest watcher who had acted as a cook for the poachers in the jungles of central Kerala.
Meanwhile, officials said on Thursday that they had found the carcasses of three more elephants within the limits of the Athriappally forest range in Thrissur district, taking the total number of carcasses spotted to eleven. A minimum of 28 elephants were suspected to have been killed by poachers in the forests of Thrissur and Ernakulam districts in ten months till September last.