The chinkara hunting case in Pune that eventually led to the resignation of Maharashtra’s Transport Minister Dharmaraobaba Atram, has brought to the fore worrisome aspects of wildlife governance in the country. With the kind of evidence that has surfaced over the past few days, the plot seems to have thickened for Atram. His admission that he was near the spot of hunting on the night of June 14, the recovery of partially burnt hair and skin of a wild animal seized from the Minister’s farmhouse in Pachgani near Mahabaleshwar are too strong for Atram to brush it aside as a “campaign by his political rivals”.

All of it is now before a court in Saswad town. Apparently, after an initial hitch, the Government, too, appears to have been yielding under intense media pressure over the issue. The authorities, however, have chosen to be tight-lipped about it. The Chief Conservator of Forest (Pune circle) Shirish Asthana has been evading queries about even things that are now a matter of public record. There is little hope of the officials concerned saying anything to the media when they failed to inform the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) B Majumdar. He was in the dark about the whole matter for more than 20 days after the incident happened.

“I have sought a report, but haven’t yet got any response,” was his reply till about a week ago. Even the Forest Minister evaded his responsibility of informing the people about the case saying that he had decided not to give any press statement on the issue.The obfuscation of the issue by officials and the Minister suggests that there is more to the story. But it’s not just Atram whose record has been questioned. People’s representatives from all parties in the tiger-human conflict areas of Chandrapur district have displayed antipathy towards wildlife for obvious political considerations. Some of them even went to threaten the Forest Department officials claiming that if tigers were not reigned in, they knew how to take care of (read kill) the animal. The incident accentuates the level of ignorance among politicians about wildlife conservation in the state, which is one of the last repositories of the big cat in the country.

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