THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, November 28: There was a kind of wildlife turbulence in the three forest divisions and Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) in the Palamu Commissionerate in the past more than a week.
There were arrests and seizures of wildlife trophies ranging from pangolin scales to double snake venom to the vomit of the tiger, etc.
There were different personas in this murky game, having local, interstate, national to international links to the network of wildlife trophies.
If there was an ordinary grocer dealing in molasses, a housewife whose husband lives far away in Kerala, there were a shrewd and veteran father-son duo, a Christian preacher of a Parish, an Imam of a mosque, a retired government school teacher having all the fingers in the sinister pies, etc.
Two young IFS officers Satyam Kumar of the 2015 batch and Prajesh Kanta Jena, 2017 batch, did a good job in unearthing the wildlife trophies along with the sleuths of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.
The Jharkhand Story Network correspondent spoke to one of the two IFS officers Jena on how this network of wildlife trophies was so hidden and unexposed for all these years, and when it was found, it had tremors so acute and loud felt across Jharkhand and India as well.
Jena was very candid in his reply to the queries of the Jharkhand Story Network. Here are the excerpts of the interview taken without any clay cup of tea in winter.
Q: Such a big trading of pangolin scales and snake venom was going on, and none of the three forest divisions, namely Palamu, Garhwa and Latehar and your Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) had any hint of it, whiff of it. Why? Slumbering or apathy towards wildlife?
Jena: I tell you. It’s no wonder that none could know about it till the crackdown on it by the sleuths of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. Poaching of pangolins is no noisy business. It has never stirred any soul for this poor creature, which is endangered and deserves all-out conservation. It is killed for its scales and meat. There are tribes that eat it. Wildlife trophies, every man’s dream that is bound to go wrong.
Q: Such a big network, but there is no task force as such either in the forest divisions or in the tiger reserve to trace, track and carry out forensic examination etc, in such a serious crime against wildlife. All that you show off is your trackers and forest guards who keep informing about the movement of elephants and sometimes the rescue of some venomous snakes, etc.
Jena: It’s very much true. We don’t have any specialised and well-trained team here to keep a tab on such things.
Q: Why is there talk about the Myanmar network?
Jena: India’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau first got a tip-off about it somewhere between Assam and Myanmar.
Q: There is no direct border between Assam and Myanmar, like Nagaland and Myanmar. Right?
Jena: True, but somewhere between Assam and Myanmar, the whiff of this wildlife trophy network got caught. And from here, the sleuths of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau stumbled upon one recovery of wildlife trophy after another.
Q: You talk about Assam and Myanmar. But the first two arrests were made in Bihar Aurangabad’s district, where father and son were caught?
Jena: Yes, very right. The baap beta knew what they were doing. It was they who told the sleuths of meeting a Chinese for these trophies sometime during the COVID pandemic.
Q: Chinese that too in the COVID pandemic in India? A fiction of imagination, isn’t it?
Jena: I won’t be able to contest the genuine and bona fide concern of the Jharkhand Story Network. It is feared the father or son might have met someone other than outside these northern Indian states.
Q: You people arrested the Imam of a mosque, the pastor of a Parish, a housewife, a retired school teacher etc. Wonderful array of arrests?
Jena: Don’t underestimate the arrest of the government retired school teacher. This retired teacher is in fact the ‘master’ behind the network. Yes, we caught an Imam after the Namaz at night that this Imam had conducted for the faithful. It was no easy task to get this Imam into the vehicle as he resisted horribly. Then we caught a preacher of the Christian faith.
Q: You people didn’t spare the woman. You people caught one?
Jena: Oh. That woman. No naive anymore. She knew her business. She was the one trying to strike a deal with the sleuths.
Q: It is said you people used a decoy technique or deception technique? Is this?
Jena: I would love not to speak a word about it.
Q: It is said you were furious to find some photographs in print and on social media about the arrests and seizures of the wildlife trophies, while the fact of the matter is that PTR has been flaunting pictures of poachers without their faces covered or masked with their guns over the decades and never has any anger been directed at it in all these decades.
Jena: I strongly believe such things shouldn’t come to the public domain when you are on a hot trail or chasing someone whom you never knew.
Q: You people arrested the father and son, the housewife. Were you people under stress or pressure?
Jena: We didn’t make any hasty or unwarranted arrests. The arrests made were genuine and reason-based. We let go a boy free who had dropped his father for this kind of deal. Two minors were sent back home too. So, where is the question of severity of our action? Our actions were within the framework of the laws of the land. As for our being stressed or phone call pressured, let me tell you I had none of these two, but I am told some bigwigs may be out for managing things even now.
Q: Wild boars in the Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) are being poached. The poachers are not outside people, but men in uniform deployed in the forward security posts in the tiger reserve are killing wild boars for a feast.
Jena: I will not be making any comment on it until I get or find clinching evidence of the poaching of the wild boar.
Q: Now talk about snake, say red sand boa snake. It was recovered live in Ranchi.
Jena: It was our input from one of the arrested criminals that a live red sand boa snake was saved from being sold or smuggled in Ranchi. This snake has numerous myths about it. Myths make this snake a very high-priced snake.
