Six in lizards’ poaching case denied bail

Nagpur: In a setback to alleged poachers of four monitor lizards, the additional district judge (ADJ) of Amravati Vimalendra Nath Tiwari on Wednesday rejected the anticipatory bail application filed by the six accused.
The accused are Hemant Diwakar Deshmukh, Ashish Arunrao Bobde, Mangesh Vasantrao Khobragade, Manoj Vasantrao Jagtap, Hemant Shankarrao Jichkar and Vilas Ramkrushna Dahake.Dahake has been arrested. Another accused Ravindra Ingle, who works as a clerk with Ram Meghe Institute of Technology & Research, Amravati, sent leave application through a third party and is absconding.
The court seems to have taken a serious note of hunting of monitor lizards. These reptiles are endangered and listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 and their poaching attracts same punishment like poaching tigers and leopards. Four monitor lizards were cut into pieces on July 17 at the farmhouse of Manoj Jagtap at Pimpalkhuta near Amravati for their meat during a party.
Forest officials raided the farm late in the night but by that time the accused had fled. Chowkidar Maroti Waghmare (65) was arrested. Some pieces of cooked meat and an axe used to chop the mammals were seized. Since then all the accused, said to be from politically powerful families of Amravati, have been absconding. TOI had published several reports about slow pace of probe due to political interference.
Amravati and Badnera MLAs Sunil Deshmukh and Ravi Rana had denied they were mounting any pressure on investigating officials to save the accused. All the accused were in Amravati but somehow were not arrested by the investigating officials until they applied for anticipatory bail.
“When their application came up for hearing, the court rejected it. Now, the accused have no option but to surrender. Our action will follow,” said Amravati chief conservator of forests (CCF) Sanjeev Gaur. He said this was perhaps the first time that such a ruling had come. “People consider crime against tigers and leopards only as dangerous. Now even smaller wild mammals like monitor lizards also matter,” Gaur said.