Wildlife crimes in Odisha rampant

The recent conviction of Salman Khan for blackbuck poaching might bring cheer to many wildlife lovers, but Odisha continues to be slack in awarding punishment to wildlife offenders. The lack of conviction in cases has spurred wildlife criminals.

Wildlife Society of Orissa secretary Dr Biswajit Mohanty pointed out that the Forest Department’s role is of utmost importance to stop wildlife crimes and there are adequate laws and punishments for such crimes. Those who are caught under wildlife crimes are supposed to be jailed as per Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

However, most wildlife offences are recorded as UD (undetected) cases as the department is clueless about the identity of the offenders. Due to incompetent investigations by untrained forest staff, registrations of OR cases are extremely low and most cases go unpunished. Even in cases where accused are arrested after wildlife products are seized from them red handed or recovered from their house, many go scot free due to weak prosecution caused by defective charge sheets.

Most forest officers who depose as prosecution witness also are unable to stick to their eye witness accounts as recorded in the charge sheets thereby allowing the accused to be released.

In December, 2014, three leopard skins were seized near Jyoti ITI in Bangriposi, Similipal and seven poachers -cum -traders were caught red handed with the skins. In February last, all of them were acquitted by the JFMC Court, Baripada as the Forest Department failed to provide the required evidences as there were procedural errors in the interrogation documents.

In May, 2015, a man was caught red handed with a leopard skin in Rangamatia, Similipal and had admitted his crime. In January, 2016, the accused was acquitted by the JFMC Court, Baripada due to discrepancies in evidence of official witnesses.

A few days back, a person selling parakeets in Balipatna range of Khurda Division was denied bail and sent to jail but in a case of Star Tortoise sale in Bhubaneswar, the accused got a bail immediately.

Similarly, in another instance, in Balipatna range, a person accused of killing a Hyena (Schedule-3) was denied bail but in a case of killing a Jungle cat (Schedule-2) in the Khordha Range, the accused was granted bail. Forest Department’s irresponsibility was exposed in these cases.

Whenever, the Forest Department produced strong evidences and the right charge sheets, punishments have been given by the courts. In most cases of elephant poaching and seizure of ivory, it was found that they continued to poach elephants as they easily got bail and the department had failed to convict them. In 1991 Ganesh Chandra Jew was caught red handed in Baripada, Similipal, with ivory inside a suitcase, but the case dragged on for more than two decades and ultimately, Jew died before being convicted.