Tiger dead, Maneka goes for official's scalp

Tiger dead, Maneka goes for official's scalp
AMIT SHARMA

LUCKNOW, FEBRUARY 21: The case of the mysterious death of a tiger in Pilibhit, the constituency of the Minister for Programme Implementation and Empowerment, Maneka Gandhi,has taken a new turn with a senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) official alleging ``ill-treatment'' and victimisation.

Maneka had recently claimed that she, along with District Magistrate Manoj Kumar Singh, had found the carcass of the tiger in a nullah with a bullet wound. But the Bareilly-based Indian Veterinary Research Institute conducted an autopsy on the carcass and ruled out death by bullet. Their conclusion: the tiger died of septicaemia. This was backed by Chief Wildlife Warden of UP R.L.Singh.

The Minister is now alleging that the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Pilibhit range, Biswajeet Banerjee, had in collusion with the doctors fixed the report, a charge denied by the official. He has in turn alleged that he is being victimised because he had dared to take on the land mafia. He has also complained that Maneka misbehaved with him publicly.

``Out of a total of 72,000 acres of forest land, I have removed encroachments from nearly 23,000 acres. Many persons have been arrested during the drive and weapons seized. This has gone against me and a case that I killed the tiger has been cooked up while the autopsy report confirms that there was no involvement of any human being in the death of the tiger. I was, in fact, not even present in the district one week before and after the death of the tiger,'' Banerjee claimed.

Maneka, however, persists. ``The DFO managed the post-mortem report which says the tiger was not killed with a bullet and there were no signs of external injury on the body. Then, how did the tiger die? The report says nothing on this and smacks of a collusion between the DFO and the doctors who performed the autopsy. I cannot tolerate killing of innocent animals anywhere and especially in my constituency,'' she said.

Adding another twist to the entire episode, Banerjee has sought police protection because of a ``threat perception'' from the Minister and also persuaded his colleagues in the IFS association to take up the issue with the President, Prime Minister and Lok Sabha Speaker. The association has convened an emergency meeting to chalk out its course of action.

Maneka said the entire exercise had been mounted to counter her repeated efforts to get a CBI inquiry ordered against the official for accumulating assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

``I have asked the Chief Minister, Rajnath Singh, and the state forest minister, Rajdhari Singh, to request for a CBI inquiry against the official but no action has been taken because the Minister is shielding him for unknown reasons,'' she told The Indian Express on phone.

According to Banerjee, Maneka ``humiliated'' him at the Puranpur sugar millguest-house where he had been called ``in writing'' to give his version of the death of the tiger.

``She threatened to slap me and lifted her foot twice and I had to moveback to avoid being kicked. My family has been getting threatening calls from her supporters for a long time. All this is happening because I have led a campaign to get the forest area in Pilibhit range freed from theland mafia,'' he said.

Maneka has denied that she misbehaved with the official, saying that she didn't even meet him on the day the incident is said to have happened. But the incident has been reported in local newspapers.