“If transferring three officers could make our forests more secure, then so be it. We have been repeatedly asking the state government to fill up the vacancies of forest guards. Sunderban only has 49 forest guards out of 102 for manning 2,500 square kilometre area. Even the state armed police, which was deployed for forest protection in Sajnekhali (in Sunderbans) was taken away for Nandigram, and never brought back. The department’s lethargy had led to a huge delay in releasing funds to the tune of Rs 70 lakhs provided by the Centre for tiger protection and we only got it on October 13,” he said. “We co-ordinated with the CID so that they could track down the culprits,” he added.