"We had a tip off about a person in possession of tiger skin and bones. We contacted him through dummy customers and summoned Pun and his aides with the bones and skin to Chandrapur. Pun's car was intercepted midway to the city and skeletal remains of the tiger and piece of its skin was seized from his possession," said DCF, Central Chanda forest division, Gajendra Hire, who led the raiding party.

Forest officials had sought help from the police department for the raid. Multiple teams were posted at various exit points at Old Warora Naka Square to trap the racketeer involved in illicit trading of tiger body parts. At around 10pm, accused Pun came in a car and was intercepted by the sleuths at the square.

Pun tried to flee but was immediately apprehended by the foresters. A sack full with foul smelling tiger bones and small piece (3x3cm) of tiger skin was seized from Pun. Later, in the wee hours of Tuesday, Pun took the forest officials to a place in Visapur forest where poachers had buried the remaining bones of the tiger. These bones were then exhumed and seized along with those recovered from the car. A total of 19kg of bones were seized during the operation.

An accomplice of Pun, who was following the car on his bike, however, managed to give a slip to the forest officials. "There are three or four people involved in poaching and trading. We have launched a manhunt for the accused who gave us a slip in the night. The kingpin of the poaching nexus, whom we have identified with the help of Pun, too has been located and will be arrested soon," Hire said. Accused Pun was presented before the court in the evening and remanded to forest custody till February 21.

Sources claimed that the tiger in question was poached quite recently. The tiger bones seized by the forest officials smelled foul. "Even the bone marrow inside them had not dried completely," said a person who saw the seized bones. Forest officials suspect the tigress was poached through electrocution, however, they are still clueless about the place of poaching.

Officials maintained that the seized bones comprise entire skeletal structure except a few ribs and two paws. "Our veterinary doctor is certain that the seized bones belong to a female tiger. However, we are sending samples to the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, for formal DNA confirmation," said, CCF, Chandrapur, Sanjay Thakre.

Experts claimed that although poaching of tiger is quite a serious matter, these poachers appear to be inexperienced and unprofessional. "The way bones were sliced raw from the body. Also, the fact that poachers cut a small piece from the skin, which grossly depletes its value, shows that the poachers were unprofessional," experts said.

Meanwhile, forest officials also took accused Pun to the residence of the key accused, who had poached the tiger, in Lalpeth locality on Tuesday evening. A detective dog accompanied the search team during the operation. However forest officials, who were particularly looking for the tiger skin, failed to find any incriminating material in the raid.

Poacher to be externed

Forest officials are poised to seek externment of hard-core poacher Santoshsingh Tak, who was arrested with Bharmar gun (manually loading gun) from the forest of Junona in the night of February 7. Tak is a seasoned poacher and has been allegedly running a bush-meat racket in connivance with his accomplice Ramesh Budkawar, who has a chicken shop in Babupeth locality.

DCF Hire claimed that Tak is accused in around a dozen cases of poaching. He has several other criminal offences, including an offence related to firing at police squad a couple of years back. He said that the issue of Tak's externment was raised by forest officials during recent tiger cell meeting.

SP Rajiv Jain, who heads the district tiger cell, promised to consider Tak's externment seriously. The forest department is soon going to move a formal request to the police department for Tak's externment, Hire claimed.