BHOPAL: An organised gang of tiger poachers, which also includes women and children, could have poached 10-11 tigers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh over the last three months.It is believed that the arrest of these gang members last month in Maharashtra prompted the central government’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to issue a nationwide alert.An ongoing probe by multiple agencies into tiger poaching following the arrests of key operatives of the gang comprising the tribal Pardhi community in Chandrapur (Maharashtra) in January, has revealed a strong possibility of 10-11 tigers having been poached by the gang in the three adjoining states over the last three-four months, a member of the probe team said.While the notorious tiger poacher Ajit Rajgond alias Ajit Pardhi, his mother, wife and key associates were arrested in Chandrapur on January 25, his equally notorious brother Keru and aides escaped.Just a fortnight after the arrests of Ajit and key associates, four more members of his gang were nabbed in a joint operation by the state Tiger Strike Force of the MP forest department and the special task force (STF) of MP police, from their camp in Dindori district of their native eastern MP.“We arrested four persons from the spot, including two close relatives of Ajit (both aged between 16 and 18 years) and two other male gang members, one aged 19 and the other being 22 years old. We’re searching for other members of the large gang, particularly his brothers and sons, who are on the run,” a probe team member said.The gang has been involved in multiple criminal activities, including poaching of tigers and other wild animals (whose remains fetch big money in international markets), narcotics smuggling, looting and killings of humans, as well as selling fake animal parts (like colouring goat skin as tiger skin).“The members keep moving from one state to another, including parts of their native MP, adjoining Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, UP, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal and the North East. They have key contacts in the North East, especially Nagaland, which are helping the remains of animals (including tigers) poached by them, to smuggle abroad.Not just the North East, but the two teenagers who are currently at the juvenile centre (following the arrests in Dindori) were even talking over the phone to contacts based as far as the US, which speaks volumes about the extent of their criminal activities,” an official said.The gang has been poaching tigers in two ways – through Lotus-shaped metallic booby/leg traps and the ‘fanda’ (noose) made from clutch wires, besides crude bombs.“You name any animal, and they’ll tell you yes, they’ve poached it. One of their other money spinners is narcotics trade,” the official added.
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