THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, Nov 23: A haul of pangolin scales and two glass jars of double snake venom has come not just as a surprise but as a shock to environmentalists and the concerned departments. Although the recoveries were made within a week, the crime involving at least sixteen individuals had been going on for a long time. No unit in the forest divisions of Garhwa, Latehar and Palamu, or in the two divisions of the Palamu Tiger Reserve, had any indication of this continuing violation of wildlife law.
Ten Arrested in Five Forest Divisions; 13 kg of Scales Seized
Ten people were caught in operations across five forest divisions, including two in Bihar’s Aurangabad and Gaya districts, besides Medininagar, Garhwa and Latehar forest divisions. Around thirteen kilograms of pangolin scales were recovered. Officials remarked that people who appear faceless and ordinary—selling vegetables or paddy to survive—often operate such networks under the façade of hardship. All the arrests so far have rural links, but investigators believe the real bosses may be located elsewhere.
Six More Held Inside Palamu Tiger Reserve After Leads
Six additional arrests were made in the Palamu Tiger Reserve based on leads from the earlier operations in Medininagar, Garhwa and Latehar. Among those arrested in the PTR, one was a woman who was detained and produced strictly as per Supreme Court guidelines governing the arrest of women by police or any government institution, according to PTR sources.
Under the command of Deputy Director (North Division) P. K. Jena, Range Officers Ajay Toppo of Chhipadohar West Range and Umesh Kumar Dubey of Garu East Range apprehended six people and recovered little over four kilograms of pangolin scales.
WCCB Crackdown Exposes Deep Network of Traffickers
In total, the sixteen arrests have resulted in the recovery of more than seventeen kilograms of pangolin scales—around thirteen kilograms under the Medininagar Forest Division supervised by DFO Satyam Kumar, and over four kilograms seized within the Palamu Tiger Reserve. Credit for this breakthrough goes largely to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), whose team initiated the operation.
The WCCB first cracked the case in the Dev locality of Bihar’s Aurangabad district. From there, their investigation moved into Jharkhand’s Harihurganj and gradually uncovered a deep and well-connected network involved in trafficking wildlife trophies.
Cleric Among Those Arrested; Minors Released After Verification
Among the sixteen arrested is a Muslim cleric, detained shortly after concluding his last congregational prayer of the night at Chiniya in Garhwa district. Sources stated that investigators in the Medininagar Forest Division took special care to ensure that no innocent persons were wrongly implicated, and two minors were allowed to return home after being found uninvolved.
Officials Warn of Large-Scale Poaching and Unanswered Questions
Pangolin scales cannot be collected without first capturing the animal and bludgeoning it into captivity and death. Pangolins are among the most trafficked mammals in the world, and poachers extract their scales mercilessly. The scales grow like human fingernails and hair—continuously and without shedding. While pangolins may lose some scales while burrowing, this cannot account for the large quantities seized.
The Medininagar Forest Division, working closely with the WCCB, played a major role in identifying and tracking the operatives involved. However, the recovery has left behind several troubling questions about the scale of the poaching and the gaps in monitoring. How many pangolins were butchered to yield kilograms of scales? Has the killing of pangolins ever been detected in the past decade? How could such a time-consuming act—stripping a pangolin of its scales—go unnoticed in forests and tiger reserve areas that are under continuous patrol? And finally, if the arrested individuals are not well-off, who is the real force behind them?
