Rural police to return Pench STPF weapons

Nagpur: Anant Rokde, superintendent of police (SP), Nagpur rural, has decided to return weapons seized from Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) personnel in Pench Tiger Reserve in February last year.
This was disclosed by Rokde during the district tiger cell meeting on Wednesday. Rokde is also chairman of the tiger cell.
Deolapar police had seized STPF's two 9mm pistols, one 7.62mm SLR rifle, two 12 bore guns, 15 cartridges and 12 bullets.The weapons were used by STPF men in self-defence to quell illegal fishermen in Totladoh lake in Pench on February 23, 2015. One illegal fisherman had died in the firing.
Rokde said, “I have gone through the case study and laws and have decided to return the weapons. The process will be completed soon.”
Interestingly, the matter was also kept for order by Ramtek JMFC after arguments between prosecution and forest department, who had challenged the police action.
In another development, the tiger cell has decided to go social media way to share secret information on wildlife crime.
“We have decided to form a WhatsApp group of tiger cell members. Information will be shared with field staff in forest and police departments. Besides, a website planned earlier will also be started,” said G Mallikarjuna, deputy conservator of forest (DyCF), Nagpur.
On Wednesday, the quorum was complete and all the officials from various department committed themselves to coordinate but yet, results are not seen on the ground.
However, Rokde said the meeting should not be a formality. “Hence, we have decided to go to the grass roots by organizing meetings in the field and invite field staff,” he added.
Accordingly, the first meeting will be held on June 13 at Sillari followed by June 16 in Umred-Karhandla.
The meeting also decided to revive the scheme to send SMS alerts about line tripping by the MSEDCL sleuths. As money was not paid to the power company, the scheme was closed down abruptly.
However, both police and forest officials said they were ready to pay for the SMS from secret funds. The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) member Nitin Desai also was ready to start its secret information reward scheme for informers.
Desai also suggested to prepare database of wildlife criminals.
Mallikarjuna said there was long gap after the last meeting that was held in December. “I will try to revive the decisions taken in the past. We have also decided to honour forest staff doing outstanding work in detecting wildlife crime,” he said.