Core officials of the tiger reserve are baffled as to why the RPF and railway officials at Barwadeeh railway junction in ECR under Dhanbad Railway Division just could not open the luggage Van of a passenger train where the core officials of PTR had a tip off of smuggled timber/slippers loaded in the luggage Van.
Sources said the luggage Van of this passenger train was finally opened at Daltonganj railway station but no timber or slipper was found.
Sources said a passenger train has to stop and start at 3 railway stations between Barwadeeh railway junction and Daltonganj railway junction like Mangra Kechki and Chiyanki and the time taken by a passenger train to cover this distance is more than 35 minutes.
Sources did not rule out that smuggled timber/slipper could have been thrown down from the running passenger train in the wake of the attempt to get open the luggage Van at Barwadeeh railway junction.
DFO Core of PTR involved in this search in train AK Mishra confirming this episode said ‘The luggage Van was not opened at Barwadeeh railway junction where we had inputs of smuggled timber stored there for transit. The luggage Van of the same passenger train was opened at Daltonganj railway station where we did not find any thing like timber/slipper. This has given us a chance to think suspicious about this whole incident’.
Mishra said ‘This occurrence is of October 29 as we thought the timber smugglers would think we were too busy with the festivity as Diwali was the next day October 30 but right from Chhipadohar down to Daltonganj forest personnel of PTR and north division were carrying out searches in two passengers trains one Up and the other Dn but we could seize only 20 pieces of ‘choukhat’ made of illegal timber.’
To a query this DFO Core admitted the haul of seizures could have been enormous but for the noises that our searches in trains create as smugglers’ men immediately inform the middlemen carrying illegal timber/slippers of the raids and thus the consignments are being thrown down from the trains!