M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan 17: Veteran BJP leader Girinath Singh has urged the Jharkhand chief wild life warden Shashikar Samanta to immediatedly issue a permit to hunt the aberrant leopard as its terror has engulfed the whole of Garhwa district.
The 4 0term MLA and one term minister while speaking to Lagatar24.com on Tuesday said, “The state chief wild life warden Samanta’s delay to issue a permit for hunting the leopard is questionable when everyone including the divisional forest officer in Garhwa, conservator of forest in Garhwa and the regional chief conservator of forest in Palamu have sent in their recommendation to kill the leopard.”
Villagers living in the forest areas of Bhandarya, Ranka, Chiniya, Ramkanda among others are forced to spend sleepless nights fearing the leopard, said the BJP leader.
Notably, it has been over a week since the regional chief conservator of forest in Palamu recommended that the man-eating leopard be killed.
Singh later said that the delay in issuing a permit to hunt is inexplicable. He also said that the state wild life management can’t put the common man’s life at peril.
Singh said, “I know there will be many environmentalists and wild life lovers who will denounce me for asking the leopard be hunted down.”
“However, I have some very simple questions for such animal lovers. Have any one of them visited any of the three bereaved families in Garhwa that have lost one child each to the leopard? These three bereaved families continue to live in sadness and shock,” added the ex-MLA.
Girinath Singh further said, “Hunting the leopard will not bring anyone back, but will mean the end of the terror.”
Singh is notably, well versed in the finer points of the Wildlife Protection Act, which deals with what actions need to be taken in such a case.
He asked the chief wildlife warden to contest his version that this leopard is aberrant, highly dangerous to human lives, kills goats, calf, has taken three lives of the children and since December 14 when it had its first killing and half eating of a boy this leopard continues to dodge and outwit the veteran and experienced man-animal conflict expert Nawab Shafath Ali Khan and his team.
Girinath Singh said the state wildlife management would be straight way culpable if this leopard kills another human being as Garhwa is already gripped with the trauma of 3 children losing their lives to this leopard.
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He said the leopard is sighted in the range beyond tranquilizing and again it is declining the bait in the automatic cage as well.
The wildlife protection act empowers the chief wildlife warden of the tiger reserve state to issue a permit in writing clearly citing reasons to declare aberrant carnivore to be hunted for the benefit of human lives etc.
The BJP leader said there is an example in the tiger reserve Palamu where a rogue elephant was calmed down with 33 bullets.
Incidentally, the department of forest, environment and climate change comes under Hemant Soren who is yet to make a public statement on the menace of the leopard.
