NAGPUR: The state forest department has decided to challenge the decision of the lower court at Umred to grant magisterial custody (MCR) to poaching case accused Saranki, accomplice of notorious tiger poachers Ajit and Keru, official sources have said.
Saranki was arrested on the night of October 10 by Umariya Police, 450km from here, in Madhya Pradesh. He was brought here on transit remand and produced in the Umred court on October 14. The accused was remanded to forest custody (FCR) till October 17, and subsequently was granted MCR till October 29, by judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) V L Bhosale.
The court, apart from rejecting forest department's application for extension of FCR of Saranki, also states that no further investigation is required in the matter.
This is despite the fact that Saranki has confessed to killing tigers along with arrested poacher Ajit in Umred-Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary in the second week of May, and another near Mansar (Ramtek) at the end of November 2012.
In another development, tiger skin trader Suraj Pal alias Chacha, and Naresh Lala were brought from Delhi to the city on Friday. Both the accused are associates of Sarju Bagdi, who is under MCR in Nagpur Central Jail.
Both Pal and Lala are under MCR in Tihar Jail. They were earlier brought here on October 12, but as it was a holiday, they returned to Delhi after the remand court directed them to come on October 24.
No evidence in tiger poaching: MP PCCF
The wildlife wing of Madhya Pradesh forest department has put its foot down by not registering offences against tiger poachers belonging to the Bahelia community of Katni, despite the fact that those arrested by Maharashtra forest officials have confessed to poaching tigers in the neighbouring state too. MP chief wildlife warden Narendra Kumar said, "Registering of offence will have no meaning unless there is some evidence for the cases to stand in the court." When told that out of five tiger skins seized from Nepal in January this year, one belonged to a tiger from Pench, Kumar responded, "This fact is yet to be confirmed." However, Wildlife Institute of India ( WII), Dehradun, investigations show that one of the tiger skins belonged to a tigress from Pench. Another evidence was about arrested accused Yarlen, who, while talking to his mother in MP, had asked her to flee with the tiger skins she had. MP officials have the recorded conversion between Yarlen and his mother, yet no offence has been registered and no efforts have been made to trace her.
