In a tragic incident five deer including a fawn were mowed down by a moving train at Kechki in Latehar district about 60 km from district headquarter.
Field director of Palamu Tiger Reserve YK Das confirmed about the incident and said that the bodies of deer were found on the railway track.
“The incident must have taken place at night. A railway line passes through the forest area of Kechki. We guess that there must be a large number of deer moving in the group when this incident took place. We have taken details of the number of trains that passed through the forest last night and inquiry has been set-up besides post-mortem of deer being done,” said Das.
The forest area of Kechki spreads over around 60 square acres of land and it is situated on the confluence of two rivers namely the Koyal and the Auranga. Around one and half km long rail track passes through the forest area. This forest area is northern most part of Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) and this is situated barely seven km from Betla forest area of PTR.
This is the first such incident in the recent past where wild animals were mowed down by train in PTR or adjoining area.
“Though we are sad over the loss of the life of deer, this incident has revealed certain new facts about migration of deer from Betla to outside. Earlier there was no movement of deer in Kechki forest. Now it seems that deer are migrating outside of Betla. These deer were moving in large numbers out of which five were mowed down,” said Das.
Certain restrictions are placed on the speed and movement of trains passing through wildlife corridors. The speed of the train must not be more than 20 km per hour and if an animal is spotted on the track the train will have to be stopped.
But there was no speed governor rule in place for the Kechki forest area since movement of wild animals was not traced in the part.
“Now after this incident we are going to ask the railway to follow speed and movement rules. We have to also stop possible poaching of deer. We are going to start counting deer in the Kechki forest area,” said Das.
As per a rough estimate there are around 8000 deer in Betla forest.