A joint team of CBI, the Maharashtra forest department and the Chhattisgarh Police has nabbed two notorious tiger poachers from Gandai village of Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh in an early morning operation on Saturday.
Suspects Jhallu and Bhaini, both in their forties, were arrested for their alleged role in the Tumsar tiger poaching case of 2013 in Bhandara district, one of the many such cases to rock Maharashtra in 2012-13. Over 16 tigers were poached within months from Vidarbha’s different locations.
Sources said the two poachers were known to have been operating in Pench-Kanha tiger corridor for over 25 years now. The two poachers’ names had cropped up during the interrogation of one Raslal who was arrested many months ago.
The two are Raslal’s relatives, said Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Meyipokyim Aier, the nodal officer for probe into the multiple tiger poaching cases. “Tiger teeth, tortoise shell and elephant tusk were recovered from them,” he said. The probe was handed over to the CBI last year. In the first convictions in the case, two poachers were sentenced to five years last week
