A forest guard was killed, allegedly by “dacoits from Bangladesh”, deep inside the Sunderbans on May 18.
The alleged culprits were nabbed after a manhunt that stretched for days. On Saturday, kin of the deceased guard, Amalendu Haldar, and the forest team that caught the alleged killers were felicitated at La Martiniere for Girls.
A statement issued by a chief wildlife warden after the May 18 incident said the “small team of forest personnel’’, which was on a patrol boat, was attacked in the Netidhopani beat of the Gosaba I compartment of the Sunderbans.
The attackers outnumbered the forest personnel who ran for their lives. Haldar could not escape and his body was found in the Morabani khal (creek) in the same compartment. He had head injuries, the statement said.
Five alleged culprits were arrested almost a week later and are now undergoing trial at the Alipore court, said a forest official. Since the matter is in court, no forest official spoke about the operation on record.
But conversations with sources in the department pointed to an elaborate operation to get hold of the men behind the first killing of a forest guard in the mangrove delta in “many years”.
The patrol team had four members. They spotted a boat with Bangladeshi cigarette packets and jars of honey in a narrow creek. Bangladeshi “pirates” often wade into the Indian Sunderbans, looking for honey or fishing boats to plunder.
Before the guards could react, a group of men charged at them. Three of the forest guards managed to flee but Haldar could not. The guards who escaped sent distress signals to the beat office.
The next morning, a quick response team rescued the guards from different forest pockets. The body of Haldar was also found, triggering a massive search operation for the alleged killers.
Checkpoints were set up at the exit routes — which Bangladeshi boats usually take — on the waters of the mangrove delta. The forest department worked in tandem with the Border Security Force. More than 25 vessels were deployed in the waters. Drones, too, were deployed.
The alleged Bangladeshi gang was eventually traced to an island that was surrounded by forest teams. Five members of the gang were finally arrested on May 26-27, hours before Cyclone Remal made landfall in the Sunderbans in Bangladesh.
At the programme organised by the Society for Heritage and Ecological Researches (Sher) at La Martiniere for Girls on Saturday, the audience comprising students, teachers and conservationists applauded the team that nabbed the alleged killers.
“The cigarette packets had revealed that the alleged killers were from Bangladesh, so we were patrolling the border areas. At night we would be patrolling in the boat and in the morning we would look for footprints in the forest,” Naba Kumar Sahoo, forest range officer, National Park East Range, said after the felicitation on Saturday.
“They usually try to navigate the river at night when visibility is low, but because of our surveillance they could not do so,” said Sahoo, who led the 16-member team that nabbed the alleged killers.
July 29 is International Tiger Day.
“We try to honour forest field staff who are central to the conservation of the tiger and the ecosystem,” said Joydip Kundu of SHER.
SHER has been engaging schoolchildren in their work for tigers, mangroves, elephants, reptiles, birds and human communities living in harmony with nature. “Since what the adults have done has taken a toll on the ecosystem, it is for children to set it right and hence we invest that time in them,” said Kundu.
Rupkatha Sarkar, the principal of La Martiniere for Girls, said such engagements make children aware of biodiversity and its impact on the ecosystem.
“Children also should know that tigers act as umbrella species to conserve small species of animals. Appreciating the frontline forest officials who risk their lives to conserve biodiversity is important,” said Sarkar.
