SHAHJAHANPUR: A day after an adult male tiger - caught in a poacher’s snare - died during a botched rescue operation, investigating officer and field director of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve Ramesh Pandey on Thursday arrested six accused, including a forest beat watcher.Investigation revealed that the tiger was trapped on Tuesday midnight and local forest officials from Maheshpur range of Lakhimpur Kheri district sought the help of rescue team almost 10 hours after the incident.Poachers had installed the snare near a wheat field in connivance with the watcher to trap a wild boar . But when the tiger was trapped, the watcher did not share any information with senior officials which delayed the rescue operation, says investigation report.After principal chief conservator of forests, Sunil Pandey, handed over the investigation to Ramesh Pandey, Ramesh immediately formed a task force and deployed 30 officials, including divisional forest officer Sameer Kumar and IFS trainee Prakhar Mishra. Their sole task was to identify the suspects for prompt action.The first suspect identified by them was Sarabjeet Singh, the owner of the wheat field. Sarabjeet divulged the names of the people whom he allowed to install the traps in his field to save his wheat crop from wild boars. Thereafter, officials conducted raids and arrested three more persons in Shivpuri village. During interrogation, the accused accepted to have installed the snare with the help of forest watcher Lalaram. Lalaram was also taken into custody with one of his aides after the revelation.An FIR under 9/51 Wildlife Protection Act and section 26 of Indian Forest Act was registered against eight persons. Two poachers booked in this case are still absconding and forest department is rigorously searching for them.Ramesh told TOI, “The investigation confirmed that the tiger had died before the rescue team was called for help. It was trapped on Tuesday midnight. But, the local staff didn’t share the information. There are eight persons accused in this case, including forest watcher Lalaram, and six of the accused are behind the bars now. A special task force was formed to keep a tab on the recurrence of organised poaching activities in and around the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve.”An autopsy report of the tiger confirmed that it died due to strangulation. All its internal organs were found unharmed and the timing of its death was somewhere between 10am and 11.30am. The autopsy was conducted by a panel of veterinarians from Wildlife Trust of India, Lucknow zoo and Indian Veterinary Research Institute Bareilly, said Mishra, a trainee IFS in Dudhwa.

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