In less than two months, five full grown elephants have been killed by poachers in Jim Corbett National Park in the northern province of Uttar Pradesh. The bizzare development has caught the eye of the highest authorities in New Delhi and the government is contemplating ordering a criminal enquiry into the whole incident to get to the root of the matter. Authorities suspect the poachers are in collusion with with local government forest authorities. The five elephants were killed on December 7, December 29, February 5, February 8 and February 10 at various locations in the large park which encompasses 1,210 square kilometers. Dr. P.C. Joshi says the poachers have adopted a new technique of immobilizing the elephants with poisoned arrows and then chopping off their heads in a bizarre fashion to retrieve their ivory tusks for the lucrative contraband market.
Circumstantial evidence suggests the involvement of insiders in the grotesque killings.
The poachers who killed two elephants in the first week of February did not go unnoticed about their work. A local youth, Sarfarosh Khan, is believed to have spotted a wounded elephant and rushed to tell a forest patrol. But despite the information, forest authorities failed to nab to culprits, leading to suspicions that they did not try hard enough for their own selfish motives. The two elephants that were killed in the Paterpani region died within a couple of miles of each other. Authorities now believe that the poaching incidents took place within a day of each other, around February 8.