Informant’s arrest stuns activists

Bengaluru: In a shocking development, foresters at the Biligiri Ranga Temple Tiger Reserve have arrested a man, who was acting as a decoy to trap those involved in trading of tiger parts. The raid was conducted near Mettupalyam in Tamil Nadu by the BRT Reserve staff on Thursday afternoon.

The arrested, Selvakumar, a resident of Punjur in Karnataka, who has now settled in Tamil Nadu, was expected to get the poachers to an area where the foresters were planning to arrest them. But the poachers, who saw two forest department jeeps approaching, left the tiger parts behind, and escaped by swimming across the river.

But the foresters who detained Selvakumar made him an accused in the case, registered at Punajuru Ranger’s office on Friday evening.

The conservationists are outraged that the informant, who was trying to help the foresters, has been booked by the officials. “This will scare away informants,” they said. But a senior official from the BRT Reserve defended action, saying that the department has all the evidence to arrest him. “How will he know about poachers and their booty without being involved? We are collecting further evidence and we will reveal it over the next two days. There are several forces behind this and we will expose all,” the officer said.

The department noted that the arrested man is attached to Wildcane, an NGO, that is funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), headed by tiger biologist Dr K. Ullas Karanth.

Wildlife activists said, “Several wildlife cases are solved with the help of activists attached to different NGOs. They also bring several poaching cases from tiger reserves to the notice of the outside world which many officers try to avoid. Selvakumar was in constant touch with forest officials over the last two weeks. There are SMSs to prove it. There have been several instances in the past where the forest department has arrested the informant when it has failed to catch the culprits. The operation was carried out in Tamil Nadu, but the officials there were not informed. If the state foresters had alerted their counterparts, the poachers could have been netted.”