Gondia deputy conservator of forest (DyCF) JitendraRamgaokar said, "The investigations are on the right track. We have learnt that the main accused died in an accident after the tiger was poached some six months ago. We are trying to track his accomplices, who handed over the skin to the arrested accused."

On a tip-off, the skin of a sub-adult tiger was seized by LCB on October 15 from RajkumarMeshram (Paraswada), BhaveshKalamkar (Charbhata) and SurendraSahare (Kanhalgaon). There has been no significant development in the case since.

Assistant conservator of forests (ACF) UT Bisen, who is investigating the matter, did not respond to calls. He has also not sent a detailed report about the case as demanded by the chief wildlife warden's office, said sources.

On Thursday, the local court sent three accused to magisterial custody remand (MCR) while eight were remanded to forest custody (FCR) till October 24.

Sources involved in the investigations said a forest team returned empty-handed from Khobramendha, near Kurkheda in Gadchiroli, where the tiger was reportedly poached. "The accused got time to escape since local forest and police officials in Gadchiroli were not alerted immediately," sources said.

There are many loopholes in the investigation too. All the accused are being kept at one place and are, hence, giving common and confusing statements. There is no video recording of their interrogation, so they backtrack later to confuse investigators.

On October 15, when three accused were nabbed with the skin they had confessed that two more tiger skins were in the process of being traded by some persons from Chhattisgarh. However, those arrested from the neighbouring state had no knowledge of the skins.

Uday Patel, former honorary wildlife warden of Chandrapur, says Khobramendha is directly connected to Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR) in Bhandara and Gondia districts. "It is high time some serious investigation is done to dig out the truth," said Patel.