GUWAHATI: The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)'s rhino task force has suggested that the CBI should be given the mandate to investigate, suomotu, those cases of rhino poaching in which the horn of the animal is not found within two days of the crime being committed unless intelligence inputs confirm that the horns have not been smuggled out of Kaziranga tiger reserve.
The task force was constituted by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change last year after a spate of rhino poaching cases in Kaziranga, a Unesco World Heritage Site and tiger reserve about 250 km from here, grabbed headlines.
The report, provided to activist Rohit Choudhury by NTCA following an RTI application, says, if CBI is engaged to probe rhino poaching on the recommendation of the state government, the investigation process will get delayed unnecessarily. The entire process of investigating wildlife crime like rhino poaching needs to be overhauled, the report adds.
The NTCA said CBI should equip itself for investigating rhino poaching cases and develop manpower, infrastructure and capacity accordingly.
Noting that the poaching network spans inter-state and international boundaries and involves multiple operators, the report suggests that CBI should be ordered to investigate the agents dealing in rhino horns in the grey markets of different states.
The report stresses that there will be a significant drop in rhino poaching if the authorities can keep a tab on illegal arms and do not allow these to enter a 15-km area around Kaziranga.
"The police, paramilitary forces and the Armed Forces also have to pitch in and help control the movement of illegal arms around the Kaziranga tiger reserve. Forest personnel should be blamed if they fail to protect rhinos. Police, paramilitary forces, Army and other law-enforcing agencies should be taken to task for their inability to curb poaching, especially when their intelligence network fails to prevent criminal elements from carrying out poaching activities," the task force report says.
The task force has sought making the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) more effective by setting up a full-fledged office in Guwahati and branches in Dimapur, Imphal and Itanagar.
"The WCCB should also run wildlife forensic and ballistic expertise laboratories to handle such cases. Such facilities should either be set up at Kaziranga or in Guwahati in a time-bound manner," it says.
The report adds that WCCB and CBI must join hands in investigating wildlife crime and the two agencies must coordinate with Interpol to track criminals who cross international borders.
"These agencies must also maintain close links with similar wildlife crime investigating agencies in Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Taiwan, Australia, South Africa, among others," it adds.
