Departments must work in sync to curb poaching: Task force

Times of India: Guwahati: Sunday, 27 September 2015.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)'s rhino task force has stressed on the need for institutionalizing interdepartmental coordination between different enforcement agencies as one of the strategies for tackling rhino poaching in Kaziranga National Park.

Kaziranga, a World Heritage Site and tiger reserve, has seen a worrying rise in poaching.

The task force report, accessed by RTI activist Rohit Choudhury, said interdepartmental coordination has become imperative as rhino poaching is an organized crime involving national and international gangs.

"It (poaching) has components of arms smuggling, money laundering, cross-border smuggling, terrorism and international illegal wildlife trade," the report pointed out.

The task force was constituted by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change last year against the backdrop of a spate of poaching cases in Kaziranga.

The report said there are a variety of law-enforcement agencies, especially customs, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Government Railway Police (GRP), for guarding border points, airports and railway stations, respectively. It suggested that it is important to sensitize central agencies about the trade in rhino horns and the ways in which they can help the local authorities in apprehending culprits. Further, it proposed that a protocol be developed for checking, identifying and detecting rhino horns through X-ray machines and baggage scanners.

Also, the task force has expressed the need for allowing forest officers to have access to mobile data used by poachers while perpetrating the crime.

"Poachers have been found to use mobile phones often to keep in touch with their accomplices. They often carry mobile phones to the scene of crime. They have been found to contact their support groups outside as they enter and leave the national park," the report noted.

The task force said access to mobile subscribers' data, call records and call locations are vital to conducting successful investigations and bringing poachers to book.

It, however, pointed out that mobile service providers refuse to part with the data on the pretext that forest officers are not authorized to obtain it.

"Therefore, as a matter of policy, forest officers should be allowed access to mobile data as is permissible for other intelligence branches of the police," the task force maintained.

Earlier, ToI had reported on the task force's suggestion for giving CBI the mandate to investigate rhino poaching crimes suo motu and making Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) more effective by setting up a full-fledged office in Guwahati with branches in Dimapur, Imphal and Itanagar.