Tiger Reserve Palamu is caught in a volley of exchange of fire. On Saturday three IEDs were recovered from Saidup. Each of the three IEDs weighed 5 kgs. These IEDs were laid in the critical area of the tiger reserve.
SP latehar Anoop Birtharey confirmed the recovery of the three IEDs from a non-metallic road in Saidup under Morwai security post where the CRPF is deployed.
Tiger reserve officials said Saidup and Morwai are prime locations of wild life and it has the most suitable habitat for the tiger.
On Friday a gun battle erupted on Jaigeer Pahar which comes under buffer zone of the tiger reserve. Sources said this Jaigeer pahar was considered most innocuous as in the past the Maoists never took shelter there. However this time the Maoists pitched their tent used their gen set and lived a life in wilderness there.
CoBRa CRPF JJ and latehar police had a tough time in uprooting them from the pahar.
DFO Core of the tiger reserve A K Mishra who prior to this posting in the Core was the DFO buffer under which comes this Jaigeer pahar said ' Residents living up and down the pahar have telephoned him begging to be relocated from there as the residents are too scared of the gun battle that erupted most virulently for 2 hours on Friday.
Mishra said ' He had drawn a plan for relocation of this human population existing on this pahar up and atfoot hill with finer details like number of houses, assets and liabilities of the residents, expected place of their relocation but all this got a back seat now.
Member wild life board Jharkhand D S Srivastava saw a more damaging aspect to this eruption of firing and retrieval of IEDs from the soil of PTR saying ' Durga puja is coming and in every Puja time there come hordes of Bengali tourists but with this kind of news of bomb blast, IEDs firing and destruction of naxal bases any tourist will like to have a second thought over coming here in the festive time'.
Srivastava said PTR is writhing with pain as wild life from rabbit to tiger want peace and firings do not ensure it at all. Such abnormal activities frighten wild life which changes its course of living. He cited a case of leopard which was so stung by the noise of generator set at a security post located in PTR that the leopard changed its route for its prey.