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Andhra CID begins probe into tiger's killing in zoo

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

The Criminal Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh police has begun investigating the killing and skinning of a tigress in the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad even as an environmental group demanded a judicial inquiry into the unprecedented incident.

A team of senior CID officers inspected the tiger safari enclosure in the sprawling zoo on Saturday morning and interrogated zoo personnel.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Minister for Forests Ch Ayyanna Patrudu, accompanied by top forest and police officers, also visited the zoo and made inquiries about the incident.

Citizens Against Pollution, an environmental action group, demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident so that "the truth may be brought out and the guilty punished".

In a statement, CAP president and well-known environmentalist Professor K Purushotham Reddy demanded that responsibility be fixed on the guilty officials of the zoo whose negligence had led to the "murder".

"An in-house inquiry -- either by the Nehru Zoological Park authorities or the Central Zoo Authority -- would serve no real purpose. The zoo authorities have their own vested interests to protect the erring employees. And the Central Zoo Authority is more of a toothless paper tiger," Prof Reddy said.

The Bahadurpura police have registered a first information report under sections 457 (lock breaking and trespass), 380 (skinning and theft) and 429 (maiming the animal with intention to kill) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 9 and 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act.

While four employees of the zoo -- forester Vikaruddin, animal keeper Venkatswamy, watchman Sheikh Basheer and zoo sergeant Lakshminarayana -- were suspended pending further inquiry, the police do not rule out the involvement of some others staffers.

The chief minister, who held high-level meetings on Friday and Saturday, pulled up the forest officers for their laxity in protecting the animals.

Besides ordering the CID inquiry, he instructed Chief Wildlife Warden T Ramakrishna to conduct a departmental inquiry and initiate stringent action against the officials responsible for the lapse.

Meanwhile, distraught at losing her cub, the mother Karuna has not been taking food since Friday, the zoo authorities said. She has just been growling constantly. Karuna had given birth to Sakhi 13 months ago.

EARLIER REPORT:
Poachers kill tiger, skin it in Hyderabad zoo

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