The mystery behind the disfigured carcass of the tiger — which in its heyday was called Prince — has been unravelled, with the arrest of three persons from a village adjoining the Bandipur National Park on Thursday.
The accused are Soma, Bomma, and Siniraja from Cheluvanarayanapura on the outskirts of the national park. The Forest Department personnel have recovered three teeth, which were allegedly removed from the carcass.
Prince was found dead in the Kundkere range of Bandipur in the first week of April and the officials attributed the death to natural causes as he was around 12 to 13 years, which is the normal lifespan of most tigers in the wild. The carcass was disposed of after conducting a post-mortem, where nothing was found amiss.
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But the discovery of a tiger’s snout a few days later close to the spot where Prince was found dead triggered speculation that the famed tiger of Bandipur may have been poached. The photographs of the tiger’s carcass, which started doing the rounds on social media, reinforced the suspicion that Prince was indeed poached, though officials maintained that the tiger was not poached. However, a probe was ordered.
It has now been revealed that the three accused were grazing cattle on the border of Kundkere when they noticed the dead tiger. Preliminary inquiries have revealed that the three sneaked into the forests again at night and hacked off the snout and the front portion of the tiger’s face to remove its canines.
“They wanted to sell the tiger’s teeth to potential buyers and the teeth have been seized from them,” said T. Hiralal, Director, Bandipur National Park. They have been accused of trying to trade in tiger parts, which is banned. They were produced in court on Thursday and have been remanded in judicial custody.
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