Missing tigers: CBI says can’t file chargesheet till we net all accused

Indian Express , Monday, December 11, 2006
Correspondent : Raman Kirpal
New Delhi, December 10: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the disappearance of tigers from the Sariska reserve which was first reported by The Indian Express, says it can’t file chargesheets in the case until all the accused are arrested.

The CBI had filed four FIRs against some 20 accused, most of whom are absconding.

The CBI says the accused are ‘‘nomadic in nature’’ and it has been unable to apprehend them despite raids in Alwar and Dausa in Rajasthan, Ludhiana in Punjab, and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Its case summary says it cannot finalise these cases until all accused are apprehended.

Some of the accused were arrested, but they are now out on bail. So far the CBI, to which the four cases were transferred in June 2005, has filed a chargesheet only against one accused, Kalya Bawaria, and that too under the Arms Act.

The first case (RC-4/2005) names 10 accused. Three were arrested: Kalya Bawaria, Ram Pratap and Ram Sukha. Pratap and Sukha obtained bail from Rajasthan High Court. Non-bailable warrants have been issued for the remaining seven accused.

Pratap is among the four accused in the second case (FIR RC-5/2005). His three co-accused are Balya alias Ram Chander, Surta Kalbeliya, and Jeevan Kalbeliya.

The CBI had arrested Pratap and Chander, but they are out on bail. According to CBI sources, it does not have sufficient evidence against them and cannot file the chargesheet till the rest are arrested.

It’s the same story in the two other cases, which accuse 10 persons of killing tigers in the Sariska reserve forest. In the third case (RC-6/2005), three arrests — that of Balya Bawaria, Hanuman Bawaria, and Hira Lal Khatik — were made, but all of them are out on bail. Again, no evidence, so no finalising the case.

And in the fourth case (RC-7/2005), the chargesheet hasn’t been filed as two of the four accused are still absconding.

Following The Indian Express investigation on the disappearing tigers, the Centre had disclosed that as many as 411 tigers vanished from forests across the country between 1999 and 2003. Poaching was said to have accounted for the disappearance of 352.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Environment and Forests said that of 411 cases, 173 related to mortality and 238 to seizures.

The affidavit was filed in response to a court notice on a petition filed by environmentalist Ashok Kumar, seeking an extension of the CBI probe into the Sariska Tiger Reserve to other project tiger locations in 2005.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself had visited Rajasthan to take stock of the situation in 2005.

 
SOURCE : Indian Express, Monday, December 11, 2006
 


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