Somewhere in Madhya Pradesh....

Tiger conservation in Madhya Pradesh is suffering at the hands of its protectors. From speeding forest jeeps to guards believing in the occult, tigers continue to succumb at the hands of those who swear to shelter them. Three forest chowkidars of Pench National Park in Chhindwara district were arrested last week after a six month-old female cub was found dead with its paws sawed off. Investigation revealed the chowkidars, in collusion with the president of a local environmental committee, had supplied four tiger paws to a ‘tantrik’ for an exclusive puja. The cub was last spotted with her mother on June 9. Two weeks later, the forest department found its burnt carcass without its paws. Nine people have been arrested in this connection. Earlier on May 19, tourists found an eight-year-old tigress badly injured and gasping for breath at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Umaria. She died a few hours later. The postmortem report said she died of haemorrhage and internal injuries caused by a vehicle hit. The death became sensational with allegations that the jeep which hit her belonged to a resort owned by a cabinet minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. The forest department suspended three officials for negligence but failed to track down the vehicle or the persons travelling in it. A month ago, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) demanded a CBI probe after its member-secretary Rajesh Gopal submitted a report on the tigress death to environment minister Jairam Ramesh. The report said there were evidences to indicate that two vehicles carrying Akshay Kumar Singh, CEO of Umaria district panchayat and relative of a cabinet minister, Lalit Kumar Pandey, forest range officer, Dr KK Pandey, a veterinary assistant surgeon and three children entered the park at 9:30 pm and Tala range where the tiger was found injured the next morning.