Elephant tusks seized by CID Forest Cell sourced from BNP in Bengaluru?

Sources in the Forest Cell said that the BNP officials stored seized wildlife articles in the BNP store room for a few days for paperwork until it is handed over to Wildlife Forest Godown at Jalahalli. “During this transit, it is now suspected that insiders, including contract employees and forest watchers, steal the articles and hand them over to their network,” an official said. 

The two elephant tusks seized from a farmer in Tamil Nadu by Karnataka CID Forest Cell is suspected to have been stolen from Bannerghatta Forest Godown from among the tusks seized by the Forest Department. However, officials of the Bannerghatta National Park (BNP) claim that a recent audit of the godown revealed everything was intact, raising several questions. 

Officials of the CID Forest Cell’s mobile squad recently caught Nakulaiah, 30, a farmer in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu, red handed while trying to sell two tusks weighing 8.10 kilos. He had tied them in a plastic bag at the back of his motorcycle and was waiting for prospective clients when officials arrested him. 

A senior CID Forest Cell official said that they were shocked to find ‘SC’ written on the tusks with red ink, leading them to suspect that it was seized by some government agency earlier, and the revelations made by the accused also matched the same suspicion. 

During his interrogation, he told officials that he had sourced the tusks from his elder brother Chinnaiah, who worked as a forest watcher at BNP for two months earlier this year on a contractual basis. Nakulaiah claimed that Chinnaiah brought two tusks when he quit his job, and buried them in the backyard of their house, asking Nakulaiah to find prospective buyers and sell them with an assurance to share the profit equally. In November, their father passed away. Chinnaiah fled the village after a bitter tiff with their neighbours leaving Nakulaiah to bear all expenses of the last rites, pushing him into debt. To clear his debt, he dug up the tusks and was trying to sell them. 

Following this, the CID Forest Cell officials reported the incident to BNP, which reportedly conducted an audit of all their seized items, and concluded that everything was safe.

“The suspect Chinnaiah was working as a watcher on a contract basis. He quit the job a few months ago. We have conducted an audit and found that everything is safe,” said a senior forest official posted with BNP.  

Another senior forest official said that Chinnaiah was asked to go after allegations of him having links with poachers. Moreover, the forest officials do not use the particular mark ‘SC’, which is inscribed on the tusks, he said.