Madhya Pradesh loses 23rd tiger to poachers this year: Paws chopped for 'witchcraft'

BALAGHAT: In yet another major jolt to wildlife conservators in India, poachers have killed an adult tiger and escaped with its severed paws from near Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh.
This comes within a week after seizure of leopard paws from a bus in Seoni district. In a separate case, forest officials had seized claws from Kanha reserve three months ago while the remaining parts are yet to be traced.
Located in the Madla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, Kanha National Park is the finest tiger reserve and a largest national park of India.
Officials keeping tab on poaching activities in Madhya Pradesh suspect witchcraft to be motive behind chopping off and making way with tiger paws while leaving the remaining body parts intact. "There is a belief that you can rain wealth with magic spells using tiger paws," said an officer.
In 2015, a school teacher was arrested after he killed a tiger and cut off its paws for a black-magic ritual. "They were captured with the paws on their way to find a 'aghori' who could perform the ritual, which they believed would make them richer," he added.
Tiger claws are also in demand to be inlayed in gold to make pendants for necklaces. Many believe tiger claws provide good luck and protective powers to those who wear them.
Ironically, this is the 8th big cat to have met an unnatural death in the same region while taking the number of big cat deaths to 23 in Madhya Pradesh. Going by the statics, one tiger gets killed in MP every day.
Special task force of the state's forest department has swung into action. Forest intelligence officials suspect these killings have something to do with superstition - like raining wealth.
According to an official release, this tiger corpse was found at around 4pm on Saturday in Kanha's buffer zone - a village named Manegaon. Prima facie, it seems that the tiger was killed by using a live electric wire. It was 6 to 8 years old. Officials have ruled out involvement of an organized syndicate.
Forest department has declared a bounty of Rs 15,000 on any information leading to arrest of those involved.
In 2015, poachers had killed a radio-collared tiger of Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR) and extracted oil from its fat for using it as a remedy for aches and erectile dysfunction. In a joint operation, the officers of Special task Force (STF) of state's forest department and Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR) had confiscated two bottles of suspected 'Tiger's fat oil' from the poaching network linked to an international gang. Oil was seized from Srivas of Sakhai village in Hoshangabad and Yunus from Itarsi. Both of them were arrested along with 10 other poachers during a month-long operation.
Samples were sent to Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and Wildlife health monitoring centre (WHMC), Jabalpur for DNA analysis.
Different teams have been dispatched to Delhi and other areas for more arrests in the tiger poaching cases. Besides oil, officials had also sent samples of bones for verification.
Inputs on killing of this tiger had surfaced during interrogation of a gang of Pangolin poachers arrested by STF officials from Sakai village. The village is located in the tiger reserve's core area.
13 people, including a former village sarpanch, were arrested during routine patrolling by forest guards. Spear and pangolin scales were seized from them. STR officials believe these poachers are connected to an international poaching syndicate with roots in MP, UP and Maharashtra.