Melghat Tiger Poaching Case Judgement

Transcript

In the first such conviction in recent times, three poachers were sentenced to five years imprisonment by an Achalpur court on Wednesday for killing a tiger at Dhakna in Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR). This is the first ruling in the tiger poaching cases being fought in Achalpur and Nagpur courts since last year. The poaching had first come to light with the arrest of two poachers Mamru and Chika, belonging to the Baheliya community, from Mansar near Ramtek. The Dhakna tiger is among the 25 feared killed in the region in 2012-13. One of the poachers had said that different gangs of poachers trafficked more than 20-25 skins from here. There have been revelations about 18 individual tiger poaching cases, though material was recovered in only a few cases.A preliminary offence report (POR) in Dhakna case was registered on March 4, 2013 and a red alert was sounded. However, despite the alert, four more tigers were poached at one go at Masondi in East Melghat division in May. At least 25 notorious poachers were arrested by forest officials over the last year and over 30 are still absconding.