By IANS
Rajgir (Bihar) : An armed group of suspected Maoists have threatened a bear rehabilitation project near Bihar’s Bhimband Wildlife Sanctuary and allegedly killed a six-month-old bear cub, said officials.
Over 40 armed men chanced upon an unarmed keeper taking five bears for a walk inside the Rajavaran forest in the sanctuary Monday, threatened him and warned him against venturing into the area.
The walk was part of the project’s efforts in acclimatising the animals to their natural wild environs. The bears were confiscated from bear trainers two months ago.
The keeper, Vinod, was about two kilometres inside the forest when he ran into the rebels, some in khaki uniforms. They threatened to kill him if he did not run away immediately.
The frightened keeper ran for his life leaving the cubs behind and reached the project’s base camp near the Khorvawa forest check post at the reserve’s boundary. While fleeing, he heard a gunshot but did not know what the Maoists, who are said to have camps in the reserve, had shot.
He returned to the forest with his colleagues three hours later and found that a cub had been killed.
“On being called, four bears emerged from the bushes … The body of one cub was found a few feet away,” said Manoj Singh, divisional forest officer.
“This is absolutely mindless. If the extremists had a problem with the rehabilitation project, they could have just warned the keeper. Why kill a poor defenceless bear cub?” said Aniruddha Mookerjee, chief operating officer of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).
WTI and The World Society for Protection of Animals (WSPA) are providing technical assistance to the bear cubs being rehabilitated by the Bihar forest department.
“We will lodge a police complaint soon, but I doubt if the police will be able to catch the culprits,” Singh said.
“These gangs, who claim to be Maoists, have been creating nuisance but police have failed to take any action. They don’t want our activities here since they have hideouts inside the forest. The place is no longer safe,” he added.
“We will shift the rest of the cubs to the Rajgir Range office, which is about 150 km from here, where they were housed before,” he said.