NEW DELHI: India’s wildlife crime control agency has busted an illegal tiger trade syndicate and arrested its alleged kingpin, a former retired forest official from the Delhi-National Capital Territory forest department.
Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), an apex body to combat organised wildlife crime and illegal wildlife trade, along with a Maharashtra forest department team, arrested Mishram Jakhad (81) from Delhi’s Dwarka locality, on July 30.
According to WCCB, Jakhad controls the tiger poaching and illegal trade of tiger body parts syndicate. He also takes huge amounts of money from the poachers, smugglers and blackmails them.
Rs 14.80 lakh was recovered in cash during the raid of his premises by a WCCB Special Investigation Team, suspected to have been received from illegal trade in tiger parts.
The WCCB has also recovered from Jakhad an ID card belonging to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), a non-profit based in Delhi. Jakhad had worked with WAPSI as a field officer.
“During his tenure as a forest official, Jakhad got opportunities to interact with wildlife criminals like the infamous wildlife poacher late Sansarchand, courtroom officers, and lawyers, and collect intel from every stakeholder. Later, he created his syndicate,” an officer close to the investigation said. He added that more information would come out in the coming days.
On June 28 this year, Assam Forest and Police officials seized tiger skin and bones from five offenders. The case was transferred to WCCB, who got information that they belonged to the Gadhchirouli area in Maharashtra. Based on WCCB's direction, Maharashtra forest department officials arrested 10 members of a hunting gang belonging to the Bawariya community. They recovered leg-hold traps along with tiger body parts.
One of those arrested from Gadhchirouli was wanted in the Guwahati seizure case.
This led WCCB to connect the dots between such seizures of animal parts and skin across several states over the past few months to finally reach the syndicate and Jakhad in July.
“We recovered tigers skin, bones and other wildlife 'trophies' from Tamil Nadu in February, followed by seizures in Khatima (Uttarakhand), Gadhchirouli (Maharashtra), and Guwahati (Assam),” the officer said.