A trial court in Madhya Pradesh’s Umaria district has sentenced former field director of Bandhavgarh National Park, C.K. Patil, to three years of imprisonment for “trying to implicate” two government officials in the 2010 killing of the famous “juhrjhurra wali” tigress. Patil is now the principal chief conservator, Forests, Bhopal.
Three others –SDO DC Ghormare and Rangers Rajesh Tripathi and Regi Rao – have been sentenced to six months imprisonment each for being accomplices to the crime. The officers they tried to implicate are Akshay Kumar Singh, then CEO of Umaria zilla panchayat and Dr KK Pandey, CEO of Manpur district. Singh has since been promoted to IAS cadre.
The case dates back to 2010, when the young mother of three was found dead in a waterhole in Bandhavgarh’s Jhurjhurra area. An autopsy revealed a massive haemorrhage, indicating impact with a vehicle. Forest officials, already under the scanner for alleged links with wildlife poaching mafia, tried to brush aside the death till RTI activist Shehla Masood brought it to the fore.
The state government then handed over the case to the CID and then to the STF. The month-long probe did prove anomalies and thereon, a narco test was ordered for four: Man Singh and Shrilal Yadav (drivers for two Range officers), Pankaj Vishvakarma (driver for Akshay Singh) and Dhirendra Chaturvedi, a guard. Yadav refused on grounds of hazards post the procedure.
According to the prosecution, in 2011-12, Patil, who was then the Bandhavgarh director, and his staff implicated Akshay and Pandey by means of Man Singh. It was alleged that the Bandhavgarh administration put stress on Singh and held him captive for a number of days. Worried, his spouse went to the collector to assist discover him. When the collector had it investigated, he discovered that some Bandhavgarh officials had kept him in hiding.
Though the exact reason for implicating Singh and Pandey are yet to come to fore, insiders reason the same to an old rivalry between Patil and Singh. Some even hinted at the “tigress’s death being made to look like an accident.”
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