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This has struck another blow to the Uttaranchal administration
at a time when it’s trying to forget the killing of five tuskers
in the Corbett early this year as a bad dream. Four platoons
of Provincial Arms Constabulary (PAC) have reached the Park
and, assisted by some 300-odd forest officials of
Rajaji, they are combing the region for the ivory hunters.
The tuskers of Rajaji met a horrible end near
Kunnau, the forest range close to
Rishikesh. Both were apparently poisoned
but did not die immediately. One of the young males dragged
itself on its forelegs for over a kilometre in the thick jungle
before collapsing. The second elephant was found some distance
away and had died earlier. Flanked by Rishikesh and Hardwar on one side and Kotdwar on
the other — all three thickly populated towns — Rajaji makes
the poachers’ escape almost child’s play. Uttaranchal’s chief
wildlife warden A S Negi frankly acknowledges the daunting
task. ‘‘But we will not give up. The immediate task is to
get hold of the poachers before the situation goes out of
hand,’’ he told The Indian Express tonight.
The killings — discovered last evening — has shaken Corbett
Park which has a contiguous forest cover with
Rajaji. Corbett’s field director Digvijay Singh
Khati, who came to Dehra Dun on a weekend forest project, has rushed back and is holding
meetings with top forest and police officials in and around
Corbett.
Negi says the trouble could spill over to Corbett and hence
they were taking no chances. He does not discount the possibility
of stumbling into more carcasses since like Corbett, Rajaji’s
terrain too is equally treacherous with the thickly-wooded
Shivalik hills, winding river-beds and dark ravines as its
main features.
More than the poisoning — the standard method to do away with wild pachyderms throughout India — it’s the manner of pulling
out the tusks from the Rajaji elephants which has disturbed
the forest authorities. The two pairs of tusks, it is learnt,
were simply axed. Rajaji officials say the method, though seemingly crude, points
at the gang’s professional approach. Tusks of poached Corbett
elephants too were extracted in a similar fashion but there the killers had cut off their trunks as well. It’s because of this difference that Negi feels that the killers in Corbett
and Rajaji may not be the same.
The state government has announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for anybody providing a clue to the poachers. The move points
to both hope and desperation, more so when the reward money
of Rs 1 lakh announced for the dead Corbett elephants remains
unclaimed.
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