Sambalpur: The forest department which investigated allegation of a tusker being killed and its carcass being buried in Mundei-Dumberachua reserve forest near Tharli village under Sadar range of Sambalpur forest, has found some pieces of bones and ash.
This has come in the wake of a report carried by Orissa POST.
The department Thursday carried out digging at a spot in the jungle and found the animal remains. After getting information, DFO Biswanath Nilambar and ACF Madanlal Sharma visited the spot.
With the recovery of animal remnants, some forest department officials and staff who are said to be involved in burning and burying the carcass are in panic, apprehending action. It has been alleged that they had burnt and buried the carcass of a tusker that was poached for its tusks to conceal the department’s inability and avoid departmental action.
The involvement of forest department officials and staff and their efforts to hush up the incident can be imagined from the way the investigation was carried out. The probe was carried out without veterinary doctor, wildlife expert, scientific team and sniffer dogs. At the same time, the officials and staff allegedly involved in burying the carcass hastily dug a pit at the spot. Instead of digging up at four places, they dug only at one place. And the digging was not carried out in presence of higher officials.
If it is assumed that the carcass was not of a tusker, but it can’t be denied that it is of a wild animal. In that case, it was buried after setting it on fire. Questions are rising that how the forest department staff who were on duty on that day did not get an inkling of it.
After the news spread, it was ACF Sharma who visited the spot for the first time to examine the spot on the day. He expressed the doubt of poaching since there were wheel marks on the ground.
According to an eyewitness, a decomposed carcass of a tusker was lying near a pond that has been dug for wild animals in the forest. While the carcass did not have tusks, it had injury marks. According to him, the animal had died five days ago.
It has been discussed in the locality that the forest department officials and staff got the information but fearing action for their negligence, they doused it with petrol, set it on fire and buried the remnants.
Sources said, the recovered bone pieces and ash will be sent to lab to know about the animal.
Meanwhile, two cases have been registered. The first one is an unnatural death case since an animal’s remnants are recovered and the second one is in connection with setting forest on fire as there were signs of fire near the spot.
When contacted, DFO Nilambar said ACF Madanlal Sharma has been given the charge to investigate into the allegation from various angles.
PNN