Two tiger poachers held at Sunderbans in Bengal

Kolkata, Oct 19 (UNI) Two persons were arrested for poaching tigers in Sunderbans late last night at Sarakpara village under Kumirmari islands in West Bengal, police said today.

State's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Special Inspector General of Police Sanjoy Mukherjee said, ''The dead body of a Royal Bengal Tiger having marks of two bullet injuries on its head was found floating on the Konakhali river on October 6. The body was partially decomposed and post-mortem reports revealed that the animal died 72 hours before being spotted.'' After the case was handed over to the CID, a squad, headed by SP Ashok Biswas, visited the spot on October 8, followed by another DSP-level team on October 10, he said.

On October 15, two sub-inspectors, Krishnendu Ghosh and Atish Chatterjee, went undercover and started investigating into the matter. Inputs were obtained that the poaching was done by two veteran poachers - Paritish Mandal and Panchanan Giri - both residents of Sarakpara village, he informed.

''The Forest department helped us during the investigation,'' Mr Mukherjee elaborated.

Acting on a tip-off, a CID team rushed to Kumirmara islands at Sunderbans yesterday and nailed Paritosh Mondal and Abhijit Giri, son of Panchanan Giri, the SIG said, adding a manhunt had been launched to nab Panchanan.

One firearm with a bullet and a thigh bone of a tiger was seized from the residence of Paritosh, while a musket with bullets was recovered from the house of Panchanan, he stated.

Mr Mukherjee estimated that tiger's skin was sold in the range between Rs 22 lakh and Rs 25 lakh.

The skins had high demand in China, Korea and Japan, because of a belief that such items contained magical property.

According to the SIG, it would be further ascertained that whether the duo were involved in other criminal activities.

While Paritosh earlier faced arrest in 1999 in connection with the murder of seven persons, Panchanan was nabbed in 2003 and a tiger's skin was recovered from him, Mr Mukherjee further informed.

The operation was conducted under the leadership of CID DSP (HQ) Niladri Chakraborty, who was assisted by SDPO (Canning) Debashish Sarkar and Project Tiger Asst Team Director Anjan Guha, he said.

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