| How come so many tigers were
lifted from under our noses and we only came to know after
the event?
The NGO community has been persistently highlighting
the poaching of tigers and organised wildlife crime. The facts
have been denied time and again by the authorities, particularly
by Project Tiger and the Ministry of Environment and Forests
(MoEF). It took a front page newspaper article on the absence
of tigers in Sariska for the authorities to admit, albeit
reluctantly, that there was indeed a serious problem. Tiger
reserves are only partially open to the public (including
NGOs) and we can only monitor – with some difficulty
– wildlife crime outside the reserves.
How do they do this Belinda? How are they able to
come in and kill tigers, when a whole nation loves the animal?
The ingenuity of tiger poachers knows no bounds. For years,
tigers have been poisoned, shot and trapped. Now they are
also victims of India’s widespread theft of electricity,
as is shown by one of the most tragic incidents in recent
times. Villagers in the Melghat Tiger Reserve in Central India
laid live wires across an animal track attached to an overhead
electrical line to kill deer. Instead they electrocuted a
heavily pregnant tigress. When her body was found on February
3, 2003, four aborted cubs lay dead beside her.
All this is driven by money?
Yes. The oldest lure in the world. Simple villagers are used
as instruments for much larger networks of highly-organised
wildlife criminals who send their agents out to
the remotest corners of India in search of tiger parts. Field
investigators working for the Wildlife Protection Society
of India (WPSI) have uncovered – particularly over the
past three years – an incredible degree of sophistication
among hardcore wildlife criminals. Large sums of money (in
one case five lakh rupees, or about US$10,800) have been found
on arrested criminals, along with mobile phones and small
modern firearms.
Where does the contraband end up?
Tiger parts are destined solely for foreign countries –
largely China. Skins are in demand for coat trimmings, while
bones and other parts are processed in the traditional medicinal
trade and then smuggled to different parts of the world. The
demand has led wildlife criminals in India to collaborate
closely with their counterparts in neighbouring countries
like Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Many
have been arrested in tiger-related wildlife cases in India
over the past three years. Probably, the most shocking seizure
in history took place on October 10, 2003 when the Chinese
Customs authorities stopped a truck on the road to Lhasa –
31 tigers skins, 581 leopards and 778 otter skins were seized.
Many of the skins were wrapped in Delhi newspapers. The haul
represented at least one per cent of our wild tigers. Myanmar
is also an important trade route. In August 2001, the Chinese
police stopped a truck near the Myanmar border that was said
to contain jellyfish. Instead, they found a huge haul of skins
– 23 tigers, 33 leopards and 134 otters – that
most likely came from India.
Surely we know who is behind this?
Yes. The trade in tiger parts is in the hands of a few well-connected
individuals, the ‘dons’ of the trade. There is
already a huge amount of information on them, but little determination
by the authorities to effectively put a stop to their activities.
So the illicit trade continues.
Because of connections in high places?
In the big cases, yes – links crop up in all the big
seizures. These include legal representation. They look after
their own; as soon as a big seizure takes place, an aggressive
and experienced lawyer is despatched to represent the accused
and seek bail. This has happened with alarming swiftness in
a number of cases including a huge seizure in January 2000
in Khaga, Uttar Pradesh, involving four tiger skins, 74 leopard
skins, 132 tiger claws, 18,080 leopard claws and 175 tiger
and other bones. With good legal representation, such a case
can drag on for up to 20 years – which makes a conviction
extremely unlikely.
Veerappan is dead, but another name keeps cropping up –
who is Sansar Chand?
He was born in 1958, lives in New Delhi and was first convicted
in April 1982, when he was sentenced to one and a half year’s
rigorous imprisonment for a 1974 seizure that included tiger
and leopard skins. After appealing his conviction, he was
finally sent to jail in Delhi in 1994, but was released after
six months with a paltry fine of
Rs. 10,000. His father, mother, wife, son, brothers, uncle,
cousins, and brother-in-law, along with various other close
associates and employees, have all been accused in a number
of wildlife cases throughout India.
His second conviction, which was for five years rigorous imprisonment
and a fine of Rs. 10,000, was in Ajmer in April 2004. He managed,
however, to get bail from a superior court due to a technicality.
He is now absconding from two even more recent cases in Rajasthan
and Delhi.
This sounds incredible. It is like the Wildlife
(Protection) Act, 1972 does not even exist.
It is just that they know how to exploit loopholes and there
are also insiders who help them to do so. As of now, Sansar
Chand has about 20 cases pending against him in the states
of Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra
Pradesh. His and his wife’s phone numbers appear time
and again in diaries recovered from wildlife criminals.
Where is the centre of their poaching operations,
Belinda?
The two largest concentrations of professional tiger poachers
and carriers are near the cities of Katni in the central Indian
state of Madhya Pradesh and Samalkha in Panipat District,
Haryana. WPSI has amassed a dossier on 262 known and suspected
poachers of the ‘Katni gang’. They are mostly
based in just 13 villages in the Katni District. As many as
142 of these individuals – who have pseudonyms such
as ‘Injection’, ‘Capsule’, ‘Cycle’
and ‘Senior’ – have been arrested in states
as far afield as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Uttaranchal, and Haryana, as well as Madhya Pradesh. The steel
traps they use are mainly made and distributed from Samalkha.
Two gangs? Across India? How do they move about so
freely?
Not necessarily two gangs, but inter-connected communities
which are a concentrated and organised supply source. They
usually hire or purchase a small bus to travel long distances,
with their families, to tiger and leopard habitats. Travelling
cash is hidden in children’s clothing (and in one case
a plaster cast). The families put up simple camps near the
jungle, frequently selling cheap toys and plastic flowers
as a cover. Working with local villagers, the men lay steel
spring traps near tiger and leopard kills and along animal
paths to catch their prey. The skins are then carried back
by the ladies to Katni or Samalkha, either by train or bus.
From there, they are taken by trusted couriers (who also include
women) to the dons in Delhi.
How does WPSI work?
WPSI makes every effort to investigate all known tiger deaths
in India. In 2001, we recorded details of 72 illegally-killed
tigers. The following year, we recorded 43 tigers killed,
in 2003 we recorded 35, and 2004 we recorded 33. These figures
do not include the large numbers of claws and other parts
that were seized or the unsubstantiated information. It is
difficult to gauge the real magnitude of tiger poaching –
but for the record, the Indian Customs authorities’
method is to multiply known offences by 10.
Clearly all measures taken have been ineffective.
You are right, and sadly under the present system the slaughter
will most likely continue because India is simply not waking
up to the tiger and wildlife crisis that is overtaking it.
The Forest Department is neither trained nor equipped to handle
hardcore wildlife crime, and wildlife court cases (and tiger-related
cases in particular) have an appalling conviction rate. In
Maharashtra, for instance, it is a meagre 1.8 per cent. Political
interference is also one of the biggest negative factors that
prevent us from protecting our natural resources.
What has our greatest failure been?
The fact that we have been unable to effectively apprehend
the city-based wildlife criminals, the masterminds and benefactors
of the tiger trade, is our biggest failing in India. One positive
step is the proposed Wildlife Crime Bureau, which if it is
well-managed, funded and equipped could in theory investigate
and act on information anywhere in India. The conservation
community has lobbied vigorously for this since WPSI first
proposed the idea in July 1995. Such a Bureau is essential
if we are to have any hope of saving the incomparable tiger.
Do you long for the days of the late Prime Minister,
Mrs. Indira Gandhi?
For her wildlife days, yes, not particularly her emergency
days! Mrs. Indira Gandhi, once said: “For countless
centuries, our country has been home to a magnificent
array of wild creatures. Our ancestors had learned to live
with them in mutual respect. We hold this great heritage in
trust for future generations. Let us prove worthy of it.”
Mrs. Gandhi was the pillar stone of our contemporary conservation
efforts. Her actions came from both her heart and her head,
and she never compromised.
And you see no such signs in the government today,
of trying to prove “worthy of it?”
No, at least not until what is probably the most scandalous
event in modern conservation history – the recent loss
of all the tigers in Sariska to the hands of poachers. This
is a serious wake-up call, with Sariska paying the price.
As the years go by, I wonder if we – or the world –
even deserve to be the custodians of such a splendid animal
as the tiger. Despite all the fanfare, the problems of protecting
the tiger have increased. Our success is that we now know
a lot. Our failure is that no one is acting on it. We had
hoped that India’s band-aid efforts and the incredible
survival instincts of Panthera tigris might have achieved
the objective of keeping the crossroads static – but
that was not to be. Sariska proved that. Several lesser known
tiger habitats such as Panna continue to prove that.
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