FLASHBACK to 1988. Sariska Tiger Reserve saw its first registered poaching case. Among the 15 prime accused were three forest staff—Bimla Devi, a Grade IV employee in the Field Director’s office accused of misusing information from Headquarters, driver Badri Lal, and Flying Squad game watcher Nathi Lal. Though all three spent time in jail, they were finally discharged, with the Investigating Officer for the case being changed three times. Members of the SEC have told The Sunday Express that the remains of two tigers, a leopard skin and leopard bones were found in Devi’s possession.
In 2004, it was clear that something once again was wrong. Tiger sightings became rarer and rarer, and when the CBI started investigating in 2005 it found that there were links between the 1988 case and the 2004-5 poachings. The same poachers, with the same information, and links to notorious Delhi-based poacher Sansar Chand, were operating. The SEC report in 2005 pointed out that if the 1988 case had been reopened and probed further, perhaps “Sariska would not have lost its tigers”. Other enquiries also found that there was a possible connivance between poaching in Sariska and poaching in Ranthambore—in the latter the SEC found a decline of 21 tigers between 2004 and 2005.
Many would feel that under the circumstances, Devi had lost the moral authority to work at one of India’s prime tiger reserves. Yet she continues in her old post in the Field Director’s office.
It is this kind of laxity and poor park management that mars the efforts of the state to protect its tigers. Though the tiger and tigress have been airlifted to a new home, little has changed on Ground Zero.

... contd.