MP court jails man who poached 125 tigers

  • | Sunday | 15th October, 2017

Sirothia led the STF (Wildlife) to arrest more than 100 people, busting one of the world's biggest poaching networks. He was arrested from Kanpur by the STF of MP forest department's wildlife wing.The others convicted with Shamim are MP residents — Raghuveer alias Kalicharan, a listed criminal, Badrilal, Man Singh and Prehlad. They also admitted to links with Shamim, say police. Many of these big cats were killed in the jungles of MP and Maharashtra. In 2001 UP police had seized a large consignment of tiger and leopard hides from his house, and in 2013, his brother Shakil was arrested with pangolin scales from Kanpur.

Bhopal: In one of the fastest convictions of poachers in the country, a Madhya Pradesh court has jailed five poachers — including Sansarchand's close aide Mohammed Shamim — for four years each for killing tigers, leopards, pangolins and jackals.Shamim alone has confessed to smuggling the hides of 125 tiger and 1,025 leopards from different parts of the country to China, say sources. Many of these big cats were killed in the jungles of MP and Maharashtra. He was arrested from Kanpur by the STF of MP forest department's wildlife wing.The others convicted with Shamim are MP residents — Raghuveer alias Kalicharan, a listed criminal, Badrilal, Man Singh and Prehlad. Raghuveer was arrested for the first time in 1988 with 129 wildlife articles from Guna.Chief conservator of forest (wildlife) Jitendra Agrawal said that Shamim was arrested by MPSTF with pangolin scales and sand boas — endangered species most sought after by Chinese pharmaceutical companies and restaurants — from Anwarganj area of Kanpur in February 2017. A month before this, his gang had been rounded up in MP's Rajgarh district — Badhri Nath, 47, and Man Singh, 49, were held for killing over 100 jackals for people whose meat fetish went beyond chicken and lamb.Ten leg traps, a jackal head, its meat, and hair were seized from their possession, along with two cobras and a sand boa. Most of the jackals were killed around Chidi Kho wildlife sanctuary in Narsinghgarh, 70km from Bhopal.During interrogation, they revealed how they trapped jackals and clubbed them to death. They also admitted to links with Shamim, say police. It was then that MPSTF sought cooperation of UP STF for his arrest. On February 5, investigators had a tip-off that Shamim will meet a person at Anwarganj and was planning to flee the country. STF teams of both states, led by Ritesh Sirothia, laid a trap and arrested him.Officials say he was engaged in the illegal trade for over two decades. In 2001 UP police had seized a large consignment of tiger and leopard hides from his house, and in 2013, his brother Shakil was arrested with pangolin scales from Kanpur. More of his family members were into poaching, say police. In 2007, Shamim's brother Shabbir Hasan and his two sons were arrested along with 13 others from Kareli (UP) with three tiger skins and bones. Both had deep rooted contacts with traditional hunting communities in Madhya Pradesh besides Nepali traders like Tamang Tsiring on the other side.Shamim had shifted to pangolin scales a few years ago, encouraging poachers to kill the critically endangered animals. Sirothia led the STF (Wildlife) to arrest more than 100 people, busting one of the world's biggest poaching networks. This breakthrough put the brakes on the India-China pangolin smuggling network to a large extent.On Saturday, Shamim and his band were sentenced to jail by additional chief judicial magistrate Narsinghgarh (Rajgarh district).

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